Perceptual Dimensions Research Articles

Lessons for a digital future from the school of the pandemic: From distance learning to virtual reality.

The unexpected onset of the pandemic emergency placed so-called Distance Learning (DL) at the center of the academic world, affecting students and teachers across all formative steps. The DL experience has opened up the way for many queries in terms of research on the front of education, besides showcasing instances of innovation within the schooling institution, both increasingly urgent and no longer deferrable. The collective shock that started in March of 2020 was an opportunity to incentivize a leap in evolution, heavily digital in nature, within the educational system; howbeit, the generation of digital natives were already, prior to the onset of COVID-19, waiting to sense greater openness in the Italian school system toward newer technologies, in addition to less standardized, more innovative, creative and hybrid didactic formulas. In the presented study-a web survey launched in the spring of 2021-a large sample of students were invited to retrace their experience with DL, and express their relating assessments and reviews. Conducting the entirety of the study remotely turned out to be a winning data collection technique given a situation, comparable to the one experienced globally, in which face-to-face meetings had become impossible. Through in-depth analysis of the different contexts-social, cultural, technological, spatial, relational-in which the DL experience took hold, this contribution holds the purpose of illustrating the main DL adaptation profiles of the sample reached, valorizing the perceptual dimension, through the systematic comparison of online and in-person didactics. Analysis of the identified forms of adaptation created an opportunity to reconstruct the image of school that the interviewees held, how much they valued it, the trust they placed therein, the developments they predicted and desired for the institution. Focusing-responsibly, and taking stock of the possible ethical implications-on the future opportunities held by technological progress, in itself boosted by the pandemic, are located within a wider experimentation of VR-equipped classrooms, in a multidisciplinary perspective, offering a concrete solution to the needs of both students and teachers.

Estimating the perceived dimension of psychophysical stimuli using triplet accuracy and hypothesis testing.

Vision researchers are interested in mapping complex physical stimuli to perceptual dimensions. Such a mapping can be constructed using multidimensional psychophysical scaling or ordinal embedding methods. Both methods infer coordinates that agree as much as possible with the observer's judgments so that perceived similarity corresponds with distance in the inferred space. However, a fundamental problem of all methods that construct scalings in multiple dimensions is that the inferred representation can only reflect perception if the scale has the correct dimension. Here we propose a statistical procedure to overcome this limitation. The critical elements of our procedure are i) measuring the scale's quality by the number of correctly predicted triplets and ii) performing a statistical test to assess if adding another dimension to the scale improves triplet accuracy significantly. We validate our procedure through extensive simulations. In addition, we study the properties and limitations of our procedure using "real" data from various behavioral datasets from psychophysical experiments. We conclude that our procedure can reliably identify (a lower bound on) the number of perceptual dimensions for a given dataset.

Multi-Modal Haptic Rendering Based on Genetic Algorithm

Multi-modal haptic rendering is an important research direction to improve realism in haptic rendering. It can produce various mechanical stimuli that render multiple perceptions, such as hardness and roughness. This paper proposes a multi-modal haptic rendering method based on a genetic algorithm (GA), which generates force and vibration stimuli of haptic actuators according to the user’s target hardness and roughness. The work utilizes a back propagation (BP) neural network to implement the perception model f that establishes the mapping (I=f(G)) from objective stimuli features G to perception intensities I. We use the perception model to design the fitness function of GA and set physically achievable constraints in fitness calculation. The perception model is transformed into the force/vibration control model by GA. Finally, we conducted realism evaluation experiments between real and virtual samples under single or multi-mode haptic rendering, where subjects scored 0-100. The average score was 70.86 for multi-modal haptic rendering compared with 57.81 for hardness rendering and 50.23 for roughness rendering, which proved that the multi-modal haptic rendering is more realistic than the single mode. Based on the work, our method can be applied to render objects in more perceptual dimensions, not only limited to hardness and roughness. It has significant implications for multi-modal haptic rendering.

Encoding-phase orientation toward thematic content over perceptual style benefits picture memory

ABSTRACT Orienting toward the meaning versus perceptual features of an experience benefits subsequent memory. Yet given that past work encouraged these orientations with different tasks, it is not clear if this memory benefit is solely due to internal processing factors versus external task-related ones. Moreover, it remains unclear how this benefit generalises from verbal to detailed picture memory. Here, we developed a novel paradigm that cued participants’ attention to thematic (story) or stylistic (artist style) dimensions of storybook-style illustrations during a repeat-detection task. Afterwards, participants completed a recognition memory test with studied illustrations and lures along thematic and stylistic dimensions. In contrast to past work, both orienting tasks were identical except for the dimension participants were cued to attend to. Furthermore, our thematic and stylistic dimensions enabled us to separately examine memory quality along each dimension. We found that thematic attention yielded superior memory for studied illustrations over stylistic orientations. False alarms to lures varied by dimension and attention: errors were greater to thematic than stylistic lures overall and stylistic attention elevated false alarms to stylistic lures. Our results show that semantic encoding orientations enhance detailed picture memory, without a cost to memory quality along semantic or perceptual dimensions of experience.

Stage-dependent sensitivity to Müller-Lyer visual illusion in schizophrenia patients

Rationale: Schizophrenic patients show perceptual deficits, which may be detected in visual illusion tasks. Previous studies found that chronic patients show increased sensitivity to Müller-Lyer illusion as the disorder progresses, although there are a few conflicting reports in the scientific literature. To address these issues, moderate and chronic schizophrenic patients were tested on the Brentano version of the Müller-Lyer illusion task. Their performance was compared to first-degree relatives and unrelated matched controls. Chronic patients showed increased susceptibility to the illusion. Performance on the visual illusion task was not correlated to the number of years since disease onset, medication or (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) PANSS scores. The lack of association between illusion sensitivity and PANSS score may reflect the absence of the perceptual dimension in this scale. Based on these results, we suggest that susceptibility to the Müller-Lyer illusion is associated with the stage of schizophrenia rather than disease length.

Immediate and sustained effects of verbal labels for newly-learned categories.

Labels for the categories have been found to facilitate learning by boosting accuracy. According to the label-feedback hypothesis, this facilitation is due to a mechanism selectively sensitising perceptual dimensions. To further investigate the label-facilitation phenomenon, one group of participants in our study learned both named and hard-to-name artificial categories, in a novel, within-subjects design. Another group of participants was administered a-highly similar-paired-associate task purportedly not involving sensitization of dimensions. Results showed that labels boosted accuracy during learning, but only when learning to categorise-not when learning to associate. The label-feedback hypothesis posits that labels exert an influence also after new categories have been learned. To test for sustained effects of labels, we administered a post-learning visual discrimination task while monitoring participants' eye movements and analysing dwell time on the trained shapes. There was some indication of sustained effects of labels for newly-learned categories, but there was no effect following learning to associate. Our results suggest that labels for newly learned categories have immediate effects during learning and that the effects of labels may also be sustained during post-learning processing.

Urban Tourism Destination Image Perception Based on Social Network Analysis: The Example of the Tourist Sites in Yogyakarta

Urban Tourism Destination Image Perception aims to describe the image of urban tourism from the perspective of the perception of tourists, therefore, this study provides new information on the progress and innovation of urban tourism. The model proposed in this study can effectively depict a perceptual picture of a tourist destination, with the conclusion that the research provides a vital referential basis for the development of sustainable urban tourism. Combined with Social network analysis, we built a research framework of image perception of tourism destinations and then took popular online comments of beautiful places in Yogyakarta Travel as an example from twitter data using DroneEmprit. The results show that four aspects are included in tourists' perceptions of the image of the city of Yogyakarta: experience, historical culture, recreational services, and tourist destinations. Among them, the social network of the experiential dimension is the most closely related. In addition, emotional analysis illustrates that tourists' emotional tendencies tend to be positive under the four perceptual dimensions.

Statistical regularities of task-irrelevant dimensions impact auditory decisions

Listeners build up statistically driven expectations of what they will hear; however, there is no consensus on how these statistics influence perception, attention, and behavior. Here, we manipulate two statistical properties: global probability (the likelihood of single ‘sound events’) and predictiveness (how often does one sound precede another). We ask how the probability and predictiveness of different acoustic frequencies affect performance on two paradigms where frequency is task-irrelevant: suprathreshold duration identification and near-threshold tone-detection-in-noise. We found that duration decisions are faster and detection decisions are more accurate for high-probability tone frequencies, compared to low-probability tone frequencies. Moreover, when a preceding “cue” tone’s frequency predicts that of a subsequent “target” tone, listeners are faster at judging the duration of the target tone. This latter effect is not solely a result of temporal cueing, as target responses are not facilitated if a cue does not predict the target tone’s frequency. Blending these paradigms to examine the same global and transitional probabilities across duration and detection decisions suggests that statistical learning shapes attention to perceptual dimensions, even when the dimensions are irrelevant to optimal task performance.

Rural landscape characterization from the perspective of the tourist using online reviews: A case study of Yayou Gou Village in Shandong, China

In the field of landscape characterization, it is difficult to obtain the tourists’ perceptions of a landscape. To overcome these drawbacks, online available reviews and comments from tourists can be utilized as an alternative way to characterize a landscape. This study examined the rural landscape characterization in Yayou Gou Village, which is a unique attraction in Shandong, China. A qualitative content analysis was undertaken on the tourists’ comments and reviews of Yayou Gou Village on tourist websites and social media platforms, including Qnar, Meituan, Ctrip, Dianping and Sina Microblog. NVivo 12 was used for the content analysis and qualitative coding. A variety of natural, cultural, and social, perceptual, and seasonal characteristics of a rural landscape, as well as facilities and infrastructure were revealed. Cultural and social landscape characters including performance landscape and festival activities, building, educational and home-stay landscape, diet landscape, and night landscape, which are obviously richer than other aspects in this rural village. Natural, perceptual, and seasonal landscape characters are not fully exploited for rural tourism and landscape. This study suggests that natural, cultural, and social rural landscape, and facility and infrastructure were influenced by spatial, seasonal, and perceptual dimensions. Suggestions for better landscape conservation and management can be acquired through the characterization process. This study provides an innovative approach for landscape characterization with online review data from various tourists. It demonstrates that online social media data contain abundant information about the landscape that they have visited and could be well used to explore the landscape’s characteristics in rural areas.

Visual features as carriers of abstract quantitative information.

Four experiments investigated the extent to which abstract quantitative information can be conveyed by basic visual features. This was done by asking observers to estimate and discriminate Pearson correlation in graphical representations where the first data dimension of each element was encoded by its horizontal position, and the second by the value of one of its visual features; perceiving correlation then requires combining the information in the two encodings via a common abstract representation. Four visual features were examined: luminance, color, orientation, and size. All were able to support the perception of correlation. Indeed, despite the strikingly different appearances of the associated stimuli, all gave rise to performance that was much the same: Just noticeable difference was a linear function of distance from complete correlation, and estimated correlation a logarithmic function of this distance. Performance differed only with regard to the level of noise in the feature, with these values compatible with estimates of channel capacity encountered in classic experiments on absolute perceptual magnitudes. These results suggest that quantitative information can be conveyed by visual features that are abstracted at relatively low levels of visual processing, with little representation of the original sensory property. It is proposed that this is achieved via an abstract parameter space in which the values in each perceptual dimension are normalized to have the same means and variances, with perceived correlation based on the shape of the joint probability density function of the resultant elements. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel: A Synthesis of Corpus and Literary Perspectives

Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel: A Synthesis of Corpus and Literary Perspectives

Gender Differences of the Elderly on the Social and Perceptual Dimensional Interaction in Neighbourhood Park: A Case Study of Beijing

Neighbourhood parks are an essential activity venue for contemporary older adults and potentially impact their health. Most research has focused on the physical and visual dimensions of the park, with some studies demonstrating differences in the visual preferences of gender. Still, there is a lack of detailed research on the social and perceptual dimensions of male and female older people and a lack of research on psycho-emotional satisfaction and mechanisms to alleviate the psychological isolation of older people of different genders. In this study, a mixed research method was conducted to investigate the multi-dimensional interaction of older people using neighbourhood park, with a sample size of 418 participants from the Chaoyang district of Beijing, an integrated research method including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observation, Goodman and Kruskal’s gamma analysis and Grounded theory qualitative method applied by using SPSS and NVivo to analyse the elements of neighbourhood parks related psychological outcomes. A conceptual framework of multi-layered social interactions and the influence of different social interactions on the perceptual and psychological dimensions has been conducted, as well as the gender differences. The study found that the social, physical space and perceptual dimensions of neighbourhood parks all contribute to alleviating loneliness among older people, that site-based self-regulation also plays an important role, and that low-level social interactions generally affect older people. In contrast, mid-level social interactions have a significant effect on perceptual and psychological benefits, with a synergistic increase in impact, and older women show a more vital need for social activities and self-expression than men. The findings of this study provide a theoretical basis for a multidimensional spatial mediation to enhance the well-being of older people and provide new ideas for comprehensive multidimensional and multi-level ageing optimisation research.

Emerging Immersive Communication Systems: Overview, Taxonomy, and Good Practices for QoE Assessment

Several technological and scientific advances have been achieved recently in the fields of immersive systems (e.g., 360-degree/multiview video systems, augmented/mixed/virtual reality systems, immersive audio-haptic systems, etc.), which are offering new possibilities to applications and services in different communication domains, such as entertainment, virtual conferencing, working meetings, social relations, healthcare, and industry. Users of these immersive technologies can explore and experience the stimuli in a more interactive and personalized way than previous technologies (e.g., 2D video). Thus, considering the new technological challenges related to these systems and the new perceptual dimensions and interaction behaviors involved, a deep understanding of the users’ Quality of Experience (QoE) is required to satisfy their demands and expectations. In this sense, it is essential to foster the research on evaluating the QoE of immersive communication systems, since this will provide useful outcomes to optimize them and to identify the factors that can deteriorate the user experience. With this aim, subjective tests are usually performed following standard methodologies (e.g., ITU recommendations), which are designed for specific technologies and services. Although numerous user studies have been already published, there are no recommendations or standards that define common testing methodologies to be applied to evaluate immersive communication systems, such as those developed for images and video. Taking this into account, a revision of the QoE evaluation methods designed for previous technologies is required to develop robust and reliable methodologies for immersive communication systems. Thus, the objective of this paper is to provide an overview of existing immersive communication systems and related user studies, which can help on the definition of basic guidelines and testing methodologies to be used when performing user tests of immersive communication systems, such as 360-degree video-based telepresence, avatar-based social VR, cooperative AR, etc.

Don't be a Square: The processing mechanisms characterising the elemental dimensions of width and height.

What are the geometric and information processing characteristics of elementary figures composed of simple physical dimensions? There have been a number of investigations of perception of rectangles, including debate about configurality (e.g., integrality and gestalt properties) as well as the prime perceptual dimensions. Yet, because of ambiguity even in the "right" definition of configurality and an absence of penetrating methodologies, there is still little known concerning the information processing of these patterns. To this end, the present study brings together two separate theory-driven methodologies, general recognition theory (GRT) and systems factorial technology (SFT). The first attacks the problem of dimensional interactions while the latter seeks to uncover process characteristics such as architecture, decisional stopping rules, and workload capacity. The same observers and as much as possible, the same stimuli were used in both approaches. Through our GRT analyses, we found strong evidence for dependencies between the percepts of height and width on both within-stimulus and cross-stimulus bases. Height perception was better with narrow widths and width perception was superior with short heights. In addition, a significant positive within-trial correlation of dimensions was evidenced within squares but not with rectangles. Our SFT initiative uncovered consistent signatures of parallelism paired with super capacity, the latter appearing both through the traditional conditioning on being correct and still present when modest speed accuracy trade-off was accounted for. Thus, the SFT and GRT inferences were quite compatible with a plausible cause of the positive correlations being across-channel facilitatory interactions which led to super capacity processing.

Size Constancy Mechanisms: Empirical Evidence from Touch.

Several studies have shown the presence of large anisotropies for tactile distance perception across several parts of the body. The tactile distance between two touches on the dorsum of the hand is perceived as larger when they are oriented mediolaterally (across the hand) than proximodistally (along the hand). This effect can be partially explained by the characteristics of primary somatosensory cortex representations. However, this phenomenon is significantly attenuated relative to differences in acuity and cortical magnification, suggesting a process of tactile size constancy. It is unknown whether the same kind of compensation also takes place when estimating the size of a continuous object. Here, we investigate whether the tactile anisotropy that typically emerges when participants have to estimate the distance between two touches is also present when a continuous object touches the skin and participants have to estimate its size. In separate blocks, participants judged which of two tactile distances or objects on the dorsum of their hand felt larger. One stimulation (first or second) was aligned with the proximodistal axis (along the hand) and the other with the mediolateral axis (across the hand). Results showed a clear anisotropy for distances between two distinct points, with across distances consistently perceived as larger than along distances, as in previous studies. Critically, however, this bias was significantly reduced or absent for judgments of the length of continuous objects. These results suggest that a tactile size constancy process is more effective when the tactile size of an object has to be approximated compared to when the distance between two touches has to be determined. The possible mechanism subserving these results is described and discussed. We suggest that a lateral inhibition mechanism, when an object touches the skin, provides information through the distribution of the inhibitory subfields of the RF about the shape of the tactile RF itself. Such a process allows an effective tactile size compensatory mechanism where a good match between the physical and perceptual dimensions of the object is achieved.

Motion Effects: Perceptual Space and Synthesis for Specific Perceptual Properties.

A motion effect, the vestibular stimulus generated by a moving chair, is crucial in improving user experiences in many virtual reality (VR) and entertainment applications. However, the perceptual characteristics of motion effects remain unexplored to a great extent. This paper constructs a perceptual space that accounts for many motion effects based on their perceptual distances and then demonstrates smooth-rough and irregular-regular as its two primary perceptual dimensions. An authoring space is constructed with these two pairs as the axes. We also present methods for synthesizing new motion effects with a specific property in the authoring space. The contributions of this work are with new insights into the perceptual characteristics of motion effects and the first design methods of motion effects achieving desired perceptual properties.

Measuring residents’ perceptions of city streets to inform better street planning through deep learning and space syntax

The quality of street space plays an important role in promoting urban development. Street space refers to public spaces consisting of street elements such as plant, roads and buildings. Humans are the main users of street space. How to quantify the human perception of the quality of street space and how to explore the connection between the quality of street space and street composition elements have been major topics of research in various fields. The development of big data and computing has offered new technical tools for the quantitative assessment of street perception, while space syntax can provide a theoretical complement to fine-grained spatial perception studies for streets. Our research introduces a new method to evaluate the quality of street space on a large scale based on street space perceptions. The Binjiang district of Hangzhou city of Zhejiang Province of China was used as the study area to validate our method. A deep learning scoring model was constructed using street images of the area. The perception of the street scenes was scored on six dimensions: beautiful, wealthy, safety, lively, depressing, and boring. The six perceptual dimensions were further divided into positive and negative perceptions. The top 20% of street views with the highest positive perception scores were considered high-quality street spaces, and the top 20% of street views with the most negative perception scores were considered low-quality street spaces. Finally, an overlay of those streets with the highest accessibility identified street spaces with the highest probability of travel and the highest or lowest quality for residents. These streets are of high priority in the subsequent urban plan. We used multiple linear regression to explain the association between the spatial quality of the streets and their constituent elements. The results showed that positive perceptions were positively correlated with the presence of plants and roads and negatively correlated with walls, the ground, water, and fences. Negative perceptions were positively correlated with walls and buildings. The present study provides fundamental information on the patterns of urban spatial perception. The use of space syntax in deep learning can provide methodological support for more refined urban planning research and provide a reference for future urban planning that embraces a human perspective.To facilitate future research and the dissemination of this innovation, source data and code of the research can be found in https://github.com/LandscapeWL/SHAPClab_UrbanPerception_StreetAccessibility.

Fiabilidad y validez de la escala de estudios de la percepción del uso de Internet

The objective of this work was to establish the reliability and validity of an instrument that mea-sured the perception of Internet use. A non-experimental work was carried out with a non-pro-babilistic selection of 340 students from a public university in central Mexico. The results show a total percentage of variance explained by two perceptual dimensions that allude to the search and selection of information, although the type of design limited the results to the research scenario, suggesting the inclusion of factors related to the beliefs of use of Internet and the provisions as determinants of intentions and the use of digital networks.

Review of Biosecurity Perception in the COVID-19 Era

Biosafety, understood as a protocol to avoid contagion, illness and death of people, has established itself as a central topic for discussion on the public agenda. The objective of the present work was to explore the perceptual dimension of biosafety. A retrospective, exploratory and documentary work was carried out with a selection of sources indexed to regional repositories. The prevalence of the informative and speculative dimension of biosecurity was established, suggesting to extend the project to other risk scenarios.

Predicting the crossmodal correspondences of odors using an electronic nose

When designing multisensorial experiences, robustly predicting the crossmodal perception of olfactory stimuli is a critical factor. We investigate the possibility of predicting olfactory crossmodal correspondences using the underlying physicochemical features. An electronic nose was tuned to the crossmodal perceptual axis of olfaction and was used to foretell people's crossmodal correspondences between odors and the angularity of shapes, smoothness of texture, perceived pleasantness, pitch, and colors. We found that the underlying physicochemical features of odors could be used to predict people's crossmodal correspondences. The human-machine perceptual dimensions that correlated well are the angularity of shapes (r = 0.71), the smoothness of texture (r = 0.82), pitch (r = 0.70), and the lightness of color (r = 0.59). The human-machine perceptual dimensions that did not correlate well (r < 0.50) are the perceived pleasantness (r = 0.20) and the hue of the color (r = 0.42 & 0.44). All perceptual dimensions except for the perceived pleasantness could be robustly predicted (p-values < 0.0001) including the hue of color. While it is recognized that olfactory perception is strongly shaped by learning and experience, our findings suggest that there is a systematic and predictable link between the physicochemical features of odorous stimuli and crossmodal correspondences. These findings may provide a crucial building block towards the digital transmission of smell and enhancing multisensorial experiences with better designs as well as more engaging, and enriched experiences.