Perceptual Impression Research Articles

Perceptual dimensions of wood materials.

Materials exhibit an extraordinary range of visual appearances. Characterizing and quantifying appearance is important not only for basic research on perceptual mechanisms but also for computer graphics and a wide range of industrial applications. Although methods exist for capturing and representing the optical properties of materials and how they vary across surfaces (Haindl & Filip, 2013), the representations are typically very high-dimensional, and how these representations relate to subjective perceptual impressions of material appearance remains poorly understood. Here, we used a data-driven approach to characterizing the perceived appearance characteristics of 30 samples of wood veneer using a "visual fingerprint" that describes each sample as a multidimensional feature vector, with each dimension capturing a different aspect of the appearance. Fifty-six crowd-sourced participants viewed triplets of movies depicting different wood samples as the sample rotated. Their task was to report which of the two match samples was subjectively most similar to the test sample. In another online experiment, 45 participants rated 10 wood-related appearance characteristics for each of the samples. The results reveal a consistent embedding of the samples across both experiments and a set of nine perceptual dimensions capturing aspects including the roughness, directionality, and spatial scale of the surface patterns. We also showed that a weighted linear combination of 11 image statistics, inspired by the rating characteristics, predicts perceptual dimensions well.

Softness Perception of Visual Objects Controlled by Touchless Inputs: The Role of Effective Distance of Hand Movements.

Feedback on the material properties of a visual object is essential in enhancing the users' perceptual experience of the object when users control the object with touchless inputs. Focusing on the softness perception of the object, we examined how the effective distance of hand movements influenced the degree of the object's softness perceived by users. In the experiments, participants moved their right hand in front of a camera which tracked their hand position. A textured 2D or 3D object on display deformed depending on the participant's hand position. In addition to establishing a ratio of deformation magnitude to the distance of hand movements, we altered the effective distance of hand movement, within which the hand movement could deform the object. Participants rated the strength of perceived softness (Experiments 1 and 2) and other perceptual impressions (Experiment 3). A longer effective distance produced a softer impression of the 2D and 3D objects. The saturation speed of object deformation due to the effective distance was not a critical determinant. The effective distance also modulated other perceptual impressions than softness. The role of the effective distance of hand movements on perceptual impressions of objects under touchless control is discussed.

Multimodal impressions of voice quality settings: the role of vocal and visual symbolism

This study considers instances of voice quality settings under a sound-symbolic and synesthetic perspective, focusing on the auditory impressions these settings might have on listeners' attributions of meaning effects and associations between vocal and visual features related to emotional expression. Three perceptual experiments are carried out. The first experiment examined the impressionistic effects of eight voice quality settings characterized by differences in pitch. The second experiment examined the impressionistic effects of seven voice quality settings characterized by productions with the presence or absence of turbulent airflow, irregularity, and tenseness. The third experiment investigated associations between facial expressions of basic emotions and voice quality characteristics. Data are considered in terms of acoustic (fundamental frequency values), articulatory (reduced or expanded length of the vocal tract), perceptual impressions of size (big/small), strength (strong/weak), brightness (dark, clear), and distinctiveness (muffled/distinct), and visual features (facial expressions of the basic emotions sadness, happiness, anger, disgust, fear, and neutrality). The results provide corroborating evidence of existing links between sound and meaning and are discussed in relation to the frequency, production, sirenic biological codes, phonetic metaphors, and the vocal and facial gestures involved in emotional expression.

Hebrew copulative perception verbs

Abstract Copulative perception verbs such as English sound have received scant attention relative to other perception verbs, especially in non-European languages. In Hebrew, these verbs can take both adjectival and adverbial complements, a fact which sets Hebrew apart from previously studied languages, and which has heretofore been overlooked. This article investigates the usage of Hebrew copulative perception verbs with adverbial complements, with adjectival complements, and in impersonal constructions. A large-scale corpus study and a preference experiment reveal that each of these three constructions has a different interpretation. With adverbial complements, the verbs have an “attributary” meaning, attributing properties to perceptual impressions of objects. The complement slot in these cases is restricted to subjective multidimensional properties, which previous accounts of the attributary meaning fail to predict, motivating a novel analysis in terms of dimension selection. With adjectival complements, as well as in impersonal constructions, the verbs have a parenthetical meaning, taking and modifying a proposition argument. The two constructions are not equivalent, however. With adjectival complements, the verbs encode evidential but not epistemic information, and vice versa in impersonal constructions, reinforcing the need to maintain a distinction between the classes of evidentials and epistemic modals.

Classification of the perceptual impression of source-level blending between violins in a joint performance

Quantifying auditory perception of blending between sound sources is a relevant topic in music perception, but remains poorly explored due to its complex and multidimensional nature. Previous studies were able to explain the source-level blending in musically constrained sound samples, but comprehensive modelling of blending perception that involves musically realistic samples was beyond their scope. Combining the methods of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and Machine Learning (ML), this investigation attempts to classify sound samples from real musical scenarios having different musical excerpts according to their overall source-level blending impression. Monophonically rendered samples of 2 violins in unison, extracted from in-situ close-mic recordings of ensemble performance, were perceptually evaluated and labeled into blended and non-blended classes by a group of expert listeners. Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) were extracted, and a classification model was developed using linear and non-linear feature transformation techniques adapted from the dimensionality reduction strategies such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and t-Stochastic Neighbourhood Embedding (t-SNE), paired with Euclidean distance measure as a metric to evaluate the similarity of transformed feature clusters. Results showed that LDA transformed raw MFCCs trained and validated using a separate train-test data set and Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation (LOOCV) resulted in an accuracy of 87.5%, and 87.1% respectively in correctly classifying the samples into blended and non-blended classes. In this regard, the proposed classification model which incorporates “ecological” score-independent sound samples without requiring access to individual source recordings advances the holistic modeling of blending.

VoiceS: voice quality after transoral CO2 laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation for unilateral stage 0 and I glottic larynx cancer—a randomized phase III trial

BackgroundSurgery and radiotherapy are well-established standards of care for unilateral stage 0 and I early-stage glottic cancer (ESGC). Based on comparative studies and meta-analyses, functional and oncological outcomes after both treatment modalities are similar. Historically, radiotherapy (RT) has been performed by irradiation of the whole larynx. However, only the involved vocal cord is being treated with recently introduced hypofractionated concepts that result in 8 to 10-fold smaller target volumes. Retrospective data argues for an improvement in voice quality with non-inferior local control. Based on these findings, single vocal cord irradiation (SVCI) has been implemented as a routine approach in some institutions for ESGC in recent years. However, prospective data directly comparing SVCI with surgery is lacking. The aim of VoiceS is to fill this gap.MethodsIn this prospective randomized multi-center open-label phase III study with a superiority design, 34 patients with histopathologically confirmed, untreated, unilateral stage 0-I ESGC (unilateral cTis or cT1a) will be randomized to SVCI or transoral CO2-laser microsurgical cordectomy (TLM). Average difference in voice quality, measured by using the voice handicap index (VHI) will be modeled over four time points (6, 12, 18, and 24 months). Primary endpoint of this study will be the patient-reported subjective voice quality between 6 to 24 months after randomization. Secondary endpoints will include perceptual impression of the voice via roughness – breathiness – hoarseness (RBH) assessment at the above-mentioned time points. Additionally, quantitative characteristics of voice, loco-regional tumor control at 2 and 5 years, and treatment toxicity at 2 and 5 years based on CTCAE v.5.0 will be reported.DiscussionTo our knowledge, VoiceS is the first randomized phase III trial comparing SVCI with TLM. Results of this study may lead to improved decision-making in the treatment of ESGC.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04057209. Registered on 15 August 2019. Cantonal Ethics Committee KEK-BE 2019-01506

Collar style design of women's suit based on Kansei engineering

To understand the influence of flat collar, closure collar, and shawl collar on the perceptual impression of women's suits, 12 pairs of adjectives used to describe the collar type of suits were determined by using the method of perceptual engineering and semantic difference. With the help of virtual fitting technology, 22 kinds of suit simulation pictures were drawn. Through the questionnaire survey, this paper studied the perceptual evaluation of different collar types of women's suits and then used the mean statistics and corresponding factor analysis to process the survey data. The results show that 1) the factors of stability, elegance, and style have influenced the collar design of women's suits; 2) different collars brought consumers different emotional feelings, for example, the shawl collar was simple and soft, the flat collar was professional, closure collar was elegant. The results can be used to guide the design of the female suit collar.

Predicting individual perceptual scent impression from imbalanced dataset using mass spectrum of odorant molecules

Predicting odor impression is considered an important step towards measuring the quality of scent in the food, perfume, and cosmetic industries. In odor impression identification and classification, the main target is to predict scent impression while identifying non-target odor impressions are less significant. However, the effectiveness of predictive models depends on the quality of data distribution. Since it is difficult to collect large scale sensory data to create an evenly distributed positive (target odor) and negative (non-target odor) samples, a method is necessary to predict the individual characteristics of scent according to the number of positive samples. Moreover, it is required to predict large number of individual odor impressions from such kind of imbalanced dataset. In this study, we used mass spectrum of flavor molecules and their corresponding odor impressions which have a very disproportioned ratio of positive and negative samples. Thus, we used One-class Classification Support Vector Machine (OCSVM) and Cost-Sensitive MLP (CSMLP) to precisely classify target scent impression. Our experimental results show satisfactory performance in terms of AUCROC to detect the olfactory impressions of 89 odor descriptors from the mass spectra of flavor molecules.

A Generative Framework for Image‐based Editing of Material Appearance using Perceptual Attributes

AbstractSingle‐image appearance editing is a challenging task, traditionally requiring the estimation of additional scene properties such as geometry or illumination. Moreover, the exact interaction of light, shape and material reflectance that elicits a given perceptual impression is still not well understood. We present an image‐based editing method that allows to modify the material appearance of an object by increasing or decreasing high‐level perceptual attributes, using a single image as input. Our framework relies on a two‐step generative network, where the first step drives the change in appearance and the second produces an image with high‐frequency details. For training, we augment an existing material appearance dataset with perceptual judgements of high‐level attributes, collected through crowd‐sourced experiments, and build upon training strategies that circumvent the cumbersome need for original‐edited image pairs. We demonstrate the editing capabilities of our framework on a variety of inputs, both synthetic and real, using two common perceptual attributes (Glossy and Metallic), and validate the perception of appearance in our edited images through a user study.

Correlation of acoustic features of pitch/rhythm/power and perceptual impressions after singing training for people with dysarthria

Correlation of acoustic features of pitch/rhythm/power and perceptual impressions after singing training for people with dysarthria

A study on the Effect of Grotesque Graphic on Creative Characteristics in Package Design

그로테스크 그래픽은 많은 감성적인 요소를 통해 소비자에게 영향을 미칠 수 있으며, 패키지 디자인에 그로테스크한 그래픽을 사용하면 브랜드 그래픽을 강화하고 소비자들의 구매심리를 자극할 수 있다. 육안으로는 보이지 않는 지각인상은 그로테스크 표현을 통해 육안으로는 볼 수 있는 시각적 그래픽으로 변형돼 소비자의 공감을 자극하고 구매의사를 불러일으킨다. 본 연구는 그로테스크 그래픽이 창의적 특성에 미치는 영향을 이해하고 그로테스크 그래픽(변형, 전도, 해체, 치환)의 유형을 분석하여 창의적 특성(주목성, 흥미성, 차별성, 인상성)을 우선적으로 적용하는 것을 목적으로 한다. 본 연구에서는 와인 패키지그래픽을 사례로 소비자에 설문지를 진행하여 분석했다. 연구 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 그로테스크 그래픽의 ‘변형’과 ‘해체’ 유형의 주된 창의적 특성은 주목성이고, 그로테스크 그래픽의 ‘전도’유형의 주된 창의적 특성은 홍미성이며, 그로테스크 그래픽의 ‘치환’유형의 주된 창의적 특성은 차별성이다. 둘째, ‘변형’그로테스크 그래픽의 디자인 형태는 ‘소비자의 주목를 끌다’, ‘다양성 및 다중형 시리즈 제품을 수요한다 ’및 ‘소비자의 브랜드 기억력을 향상시킨다’패키지 디자인보다 선호된다. ‘변형’과 ‘전도’의 그로테스크 그래픽의 디자인 형태는 ‘소비자의 홍미를 끌다’을 주된 목적으로 패키지 그래픽 디자인에 우선 적용된다. 셋째, 패키지 그래픽의 창의적 특성이 소비자에게 미치는 전반적인 영향을 고려할 때 그로테스크 그래픽 디자인의 ‘변형’ 유형을 사용하는 것으로 나타났다. 연구 결과에 따르면, ‘변형’ 유형의 그로테스크 그래픽은 가장 중요한 창의적 특성을 가지고 있다. 그로테스크 그래픽과 패키지 선택의 적용에서는 그로테스크 그래픽 디자인의 ‘변형’ 유형을 우선 선택하는 것이 좋다.Grotesque graphics can influence consumers through many emotional factors, and the use of Grotesque graphics in package design can strengthen brand graphics and stimulate consumer purchasing psychology. Perceptual impressions that are invisible to the naked eye are transformed into visual graphics that can be seen with the naked eye through Grotesque expression, stimulating consumer sympathy and arousing purchase intention. The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of Grotesque graphics on creative characteristics and to apply creative characteristics (attention, interest, differentiation, impression) preferentially by analyzing the types of Grotesque graphics (transformation, inversion, dismantling, cutting). do it with In this study, using wine package graphics as a case, a questionnaire was conducted and analyzed. The study results are as follows. First, the main creative characteristic of transformation and deconstruction type of Grotesque graphic is attention, the main creative characteristic of inversion type of Grotesque graphic is redness, and the main creative characteristic of cutting type of Grotesque graphic is It is differentiation. Second, the design form of the transformation Grotesque graphic is preferred over the package design attract the attention of consumers , demand variety and multi-series products and improve the brand memory of consumers . The design form of the Grotesque graphic of transformation and inversion is applied first to the package graphic design with the main purpose of attracting the red beauty of consumers . Third, when considering the overall impact of the creative characteristics of package graphics on consumers, it was found to use the transformation type of Grotesque graphic design. According to the research results, the ‘transformation’ type of Grotesque graphic has the most important creative characteristics. In the application of Grotesque graphics and package selection, it is better to select the transformation type of Grotesque graphic design first.

Acoustic Identification of Sentence Accent in Speakers with Dysarthria: Cross-Population Validation and Severity Related Patterns.

Dysprosody is a hallmark of dysarthria, which can affect the intelligibility and naturalness of speech. This includes sentence accent, which helps to draw listeners’ attention to important information in the message. Although some studies have investigated this feature, we currently lack properly validated automated procedures that can distinguish between subtle performance differences observed across speakers with dysarthria. This study aims for cross-population validation of a set of acoustic features that have previously been shown to correlate with sentence accent. In addition, the impact of dysarthria severity levels on sentence accent production is investigated. Two groups of adults were analysed (Dutch and English speakers). Fifty-eight participants with dysarthria and 30 healthy control participants (HCP) produced sentences with varying accent positions. All speech samples were evaluated perceptually and analysed acoustically with an algorithm that extracts ten meaningful prosodic features and allows a classification between accented and unaccented syllables based on a linear combination of these parameters. The data were statistically analysed using discriminant analysis. Within the Dutch and English dysarthric population, the algorithm correctly identified 82.8 and 91.9% of the accented target syllables, respectively, indicating that the capacity to discriminate between accented and unaccented syllables in a sentence is consistent with perceptual impressions. Moreover, different strategies for accent production across dysarthria severity levels could be demonstrated, which is an important step toward a better understanding of the nature of the deficit and the automatic classification of dysarthria severity using prosodic features.

The effect of a horizontal light pipe and a custom-made reflector on the user’s perceptual impression of the office room located at a high latitude

This paper describes a qualitative study on user opinion of daylight supplementation via a horizontal light pipe (HLP) applied in a test office in a building located in southern Norway. The study is part of a full-scale long-term study analysing lighting energy consumption and the photometry of supplemented light. This study employs a custom-made reflector for daylight distribution via HLP to preserve the features of natural light, noted as the primary human association with daylight, and is, as such, first of its kind. The main research aim was to find out if noticeable daylighting provision from the HLP leads to a positive user perception of the space when compared to a situation without a HLP. The study collects user responses to a new illumination solution using a user-survey method based on exposure to the visual environment of an experimental office. Statistical correlation and a t-test were used to analyse the results. The paper concluded that the user appraisal of the office was more positive when there was a noticeable daylight supplement from the HLP in the space, but the appraisal was negative for the higher light variability in the illuminance level both indoors and outdoors. The conclusion serves as an additional argument for the implementation of the HLP in building design, besides its energy saving potential.

Articulatory Correlates of Stress Pattern Disturbances in Talkers With Dysarthria.

Purpose Reduced stress commonly occurs in talkers with Parkinson's disease (PD), whereas excessive and equal stress is frequently associated with dysarthria of talkers with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS). This study sought to identify articulatory impairment patterns that underlie these two impaired stress patterns. We further aimed to determine if talkers with the same stress pattern disturbance but different diseases (ALS and MS) exhibit disease-specific articulatory deficits. Method Fifty-seven talkers participated in the study-33 talkers with dysarthria and 24 controls. Talkers with dysarthria were grouped based on their medical diagnosis: PD (n = 15), ALS (n = 10), MS (n = 8). Participants repeated target words embedded in a carrier phrase. Kinematic data were recorded using electromagnetic articulography. Duration, displacement, peak speed, stiffness, time-to-peak speed, and parameter c were extracted for the initial lower lip opening stroke of each target word, which was either stressed or unstressed. Results Stress effects were significant for all kinematic measures across groups except for stiffness and time-to-peak speed, which were nonsignificant in ALS. For comparisons with controls, more kinematic measures significantly differed in the ALS group than in the PD and MS groups. Additionally, ALS and MS showed mostly similar articulatory impairment patterns. Conclusions In general, significant stress effects were observed in talkers with dysarthria. However, stress-specific between-group differences in articulatory performance, particularly displacement, may explain the perceptual impression of disturbed stress patterns. Furthermore, similar findings for ALS and MS suggest that articulatory deficits underlying similar stress pattern disturbances are not disease-specific.

Olfactory Perception in Relation to the Physicochemical Odor Space.

A growing body of research aims at solving what is often referred to as the stimulus-percept problem in olfactory perception. Although computational efforts have made it possible to predict perceptual impressions from the physicochemical space of odors, studies with large psychophysical datasets from non-experts remain scarce. Following previous approaches, we developed a physicochemical odor space using 4094 molecular descriptors of 1389 odor molecules. For 20 of these odors, we examined associations with perceived pleasantness, intensity, odor quality and detection threshold, obtained from a dataset of 2000 naïve participants. Our results show significant differences in perceptual ratings, and we were able to replicate previous findings on the association between perceptual ratings and the first dimensions of the physicochemical odor space. However, the present analyses also revealed striking interindividual variations in perceived pleasantness and intensity. Additionally, interactions between pleasantness, intensity, and olfactory and trigeminal qualitative dimensions were found. To conclude, our results support previous findings on the relation between structure and perception on the group level in our sample of non-expert raters. In the challenging task to relate olfactory stimulus and percept, the physicochemical odor space can serve as a reliable and helpful tool to structure the high-dimensional space of olfactory stimuli. Nevertheless, human olfactory perception in the individual is not an analytic process of molecule detection alone, but is part of a holistic integration of multisensory inputs, context and experience.

Meinong Epistemologist of Measurement

Contemporary theories of measurement seem to have almost forgotten the epistemological questions linked to the psychological aspects of measurement. Indeed, the received approaches, i.e. the representational theory of measurement and the model-based account, are well developed from the mathematical and operational points of view; however, they do not consider sufficiently the reliability of the perceptual impressions involved in any measurement. In contrast, Gustav Theodor Fechner, one of the fathers of modern experimental psychology, addresses this question at length. His work stimulated an epistemological analysis of the quantification of qualities - a process necessary for empirical science - in an almost forgotten paper by Meinong. I present Meinong’s approach in much greater historical and epistemological detail than has been done in the literature thus far. Moreover, I show how Meinong’s approach can fruitfully enrich the received view on measurement theory.

Towards a Construction Grammar Analysis of English Pseudo-Copular Constructions with Perceptual Impression Verbs

Be as a copula in English, traditionally part of the subject-verb-subject complement pattern, syntactically links the subject to a complement and semantically makes little or no contribution of its own to the meaning of the clause. Semi-copulas (e.g. become, grow, turn, remain, etc.) share a number of properties with the be copula, but differ from it in that they cannot be left out without resulting in ungrammaticality or changing the meaning of the construction. They are introduced as the expression of ingressive or continuative aspect. Pseudo-copulas including perceptual impression verbs such as sound, look, taste, smell, and feel do not really link the subject to a complement. Their meanings are evidential and evaluative, based either on the speaker’s sensory modality or reported modality. The author provides descriptions of five pseudo-copular constructions with perceptual impression verbs, based on the Construction Grammar approach, but derives insights and their names from Functional Grammar (Hengeveld 1992) and Word Grammar (Gisborne 2010). Artykuł omawia angielskie konstrukcje z czasownikiem posiłkowym be ‘być’ (ang. copular constructions), konstrukcje z czasownikami częściowo posiłkowymi (ang. semi-copular constructions) oraz konstrukcje z czasownikami pozornie posiłkowymi (ang. pseudo-copular constructions). Czasownik posiłkowy be ‘być’ (ang. copular verb be) pełni funkcję łączącą podmiot z dopełnieniem i posiada nieznaczną wartość semantyczną. Czasowniki częściowo posiłkowe (ang. semi-copular verbs) posiadają kilka wspólnych właściwości z czasownikiem posiłkowym be ‘być’, jednak różnią się od niego tym, że ich opuszczenie skutkuje niepoprawnością gramatyczną. Występują one w aspektach ingresywnym i kontynuatywnym. Analizowane czasowniki pozornie posiłkowe są czasownikami sensorycznymi. Ich znaczenia są znaczeniami modalnymi. Na podstawie doświadczenia pośrednio lub bezpośrednio sensorycznego, użytkownik języka dokonuje oceny wartościującej. Autor proponuje opisy pięciu konstrukcji z sensorycznymi czasownikami pozornie posiłkowymi na podstawie teorii gramatyki konstrukcji, choć swoje rozważania wywodzi z teorii gramatyki funkcjonalnej i teorii gramatyki słowa. Słowa kluczowe: czasownik posiłkowy, czasownik częściowo posiłkowy, czasownik pozornie posiłkowy, czasownik sensoryczny, konstrukcje, modalność epistemiczna, modalność wartościująca

RUSSIAN ACCENT IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE AFFECTS THE PERCEPTION OF VOICE PLEASANTNESS BY BRAZILIANS

The field of foreign accents in Brazilian Portuguese is very poorly explored mainly in relation to perceptual impressions caused on listeners by foreign accents. The objective of this paper is to conduct a perceptual experiment to analyze the perception of voice pleasantness in relation to degrees of foreign accent. Our focus is on Russian accented Brazilian Portuguese. Despite the representativeness of the Russian community in Brazil, there are hardly any studies on Russian accented speech. T o evaluate the perception of voice pleasantness in relation to the Russian accented speech, we have selected, from our database, speech samples in Brazilian Portuguese from 12 native Russian speakers and six Brazilians, all of them residing in São Paulo. The speech samples were incorporated into an online questionnaire. The analysis of the 129 answers given by the native Brazilian Portuguese speakers showed a strong negative correlation between the degree of Russian accent in Brazilian Portuguese and the degree of voice pleasantness. Experience of interaction with foreigners or knowledge of foreign languages, including Russian, did not influence the result. We conclude that higher degrees of Russian accented speech in Brazilian Portuguese affect the perception of speakers´ characteristics by Brazilians in a negative way.

Evaluating and visualizing perceptual impressions of daylighting in immersive virtual environments

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a gamified approach to collect and visualize human perception of daylighting in large-scale indoor environments using immersive virtual environments (IVEs). The developed system was tested by 20 participants, where their daylighting preferences for the virtual environment were collected at two daytimes through snapshotting and evaluating their points of interest in terms of brightness, as well as their evaluation of the system and daylight quality. Afterward, participants’ feedback was visualized into a perceptive lighting map (PLM) and compared to an image-based quantitative metric. The results of this experimental study found a tendency among participants to report more feedback in areas with large daylight portals rather than other areas with similar light intensity. Additionally, results from both subjective and simulation-based metrics showed consistency in defining daylight intensity, as well as explained the occurrence of contradicting user evaluations of some identical areas in IVE as a result of high contrast in brightness. The findings showed the adequacy of the proposed system as a visual source of user-centered feedback to daylighting in the early stages of design, as well as a supplement tool for building performance simulations (BPS).

Visual impressions of active and inanimate resistance to impact from a moving object

ABSTRACT Images of moving objects presented on computer screens may be perceived as animate or inanimate. A simple hypothesis, consistent with much research evidence, is that objects are perceived as inanimate if there is a visible external contact from another object immediately prior to the onset of motion, and as animate if that is not the case. Evidence is reported that is not consistent with that hypothesis. Objects (targets) moving on contact from another object (launcher) were perceived as actively resisting the impact of the launcher on them if the targets slowed rapidly. Rapid slowing is consistent with the laws of mechanics for objects moving in an environment that offers friction and air resistance. Despite that, ratings of inanimate motion were lower than ratings of active resistance for objects that slowed rapidly. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that there is a perceptual impression of active (animate) resistance that is evoked by the kinematic pattern of rapid slowing from an initial speed after contact from another object.