Perceptual Process Research Articles

Enhancing Robot Task Planning and Execution through Multi-Layer Large Language Models.

Large language models have found utility in the domain of robot task planning and task decomposition. Nevertheless, the direct application of these models for instructing robots in task execution is not without its challenges. Limitations arise in handling more intricate tasks, encountering difficulties in effective interaction with the environment, and facing constraints in the practical executability of machine control instructions directly generated by such models. In response to these challenges, this research advocates for the implementation of a multi-layer large language model to augment a robot's proficiency in handling complex tasks. The proposed model facilitates a meticulous layer-by-layer decomposition of tasks through the integration of multiple large language models, with the overarching goal of enhancing the accuracy of task planning. Within the task decomposition process, a visual language model is introduced as a sensor for environment perception. The outcomes of this perception process are subsequently assimilated into the large language model, thereby amalgamating the task objectives with environmental information. This integration, in turn, results in the generation of robot motion planning tailored to the specific characteristics of the current environment. Furthermore, to enhance the executability of task planning outputs from the large language model, a semantic alignment method is introduced. This method aligns task planning descriptions with the functional requirements of robot motion, thereby refining the overall compatibility and coherence of the generated instructions. To validate the efficacy of the proposed approach, an experimental platform is established utilizing an intelligent unmanned vehicle. This platform serves as a means to empirically verify the proficiency of the multi-layer large language model in addressing the intricate challenges associated with both robot task planning and execution.

Eye movements in the development of geometric shape recognition: from sensory-motor processes to theoretical perception

AbstractEfficient recognition of geometric shapes is an important aspect of proficiency in geometry. Building theoretically on the cultural-historical approach enriched by the physiology of activity, we investigate theoretical perception in geometry—the ability to recognize conceptual geometric aspects of visual figures. Aiming to understand the development of theoretical perception, we investigate how sensory-motor processes of eye movements differ between adults and children when perceiving geometric figures. In an empirical study, we explored the variety of perceptual strategies used by first-grade students and compared them with the adults’ perception. The results reveal the contraction of eye movements: with growing expertise, foveal analysis—namely, an inspection of the figures by directing the gaze to their parts—is substituted by extrafoveal analysis—namely, perceiving without looking directly. The variety of the observed children’s perceptual strategies demonstrates that theoretical perception of different figures is heterogeneous. From the suggested theoretical perspective, the direct foveal inspection of particular figures is critical for the development of general anticipatory images of geometric shapes. Our theoretical analysis and empirical findings lead to distinguishing several functions of sensory-motor processes in theoretical perception in geometry. Those functions include positioning the retina in the best way for the comparison of sensory feedback with the geometric shape’s anticipatory image, advancing an anticipatory image based on visual experience, and regulating covert attention. All of these functions need to be taken into account when interpreting the results of eye-tracking studies in mathematics education research. Notably, our research highlights the limitations of the eye-mind hypothesis: direct fixations on a figure are not always needed for its theoretical perception and, the other way around, a fixation position may indicate the comparison of a broad extrafoveal region with an anticipatory image.

Mechanisms of Aesthetics: On the Perception of Materials and Their Properties.

The visual perception of material surface qualities holds immense importance in our daily lives, serving as the foundation for various environmental interpretations and behavioural adaptations. These encompass critical safety aspects, like assessing floor safety or food freshness, to appreciating intricate sculptural illusions, such as delicately draped fabric in marble statues. Particularly for products with high aesthetic value, perceived properties play a significant role in subjectively attributing material worth. Given the vast array of material surfaces and the pivotal role of lighting in the overall visual perception process, this presents a major challenge for lighting planners and designers. Currently, the achievement of aesthetic effects in architectural spaces heavily relies on the opinions and experiences of professionals, as there are no specific guidelines for combining materials with different lighting concepts. Hence, decoding the connection between physical properties and their subjective interpretations becomes crucial in facilitating the objective planning of materials. In this study, more than 600 materials were systematically examined to explore the interaction between perceived material properties and the resulting aesthetic effects. The resulting perception model establishes a direct link between objectively assigned and subjectively perceived material properties. These findings hold promise in contributing to both a more accurate evaluation and prediction of material appearances in the long term.

Assessing Spontaneous Categorical Processing of Visual Shapes via Frequency-Tagging EEG.

Categorization is an essential cognitive and perceptual process, which happens spontaneously. However, earlier research often neglected the spontaneous nature of this process by mainly adopting explicit tasks in behavioral or neuroimaging paradigms. Here, we use frequency-tagging (FT) during electroencephalography (EEG) in 22 healthy human participants (both male and female) as a direct approach to pinpoint spontaneous visual categorical processing. Starting from schematic natural visual stimuli, we created morph sequences comprising 11 equal steps. Mirroring a behavioral categorical perception discrimination paradigm, we administered a FT-EEG oddball paradigm, assessing neural sensitivity for equally sized differences within and between stimulus categories. Likewise, mirroring a behavioral category classification paradigm, we administered a sweep FT-EEG oddball paradigm, sweeping from one end of the morph sequence to the other, thereby allowing us to objectively pinpoint the neural category boundary. We found that FT-EEG can implicitly measure categorical processing and discrimination. More specifically, we could derive an objective neural index of the required level to differentiate between the two categories, and this neural index showed the typical marker of categorical perception (i.e., stronger discrimination across as compared with within categories). The neural findings of the implicit paradigms were also validated using an explicit behavioral task. These results provide evidence that FT-EEG can be used as an objective tool to measure discrimination and categorization and that the human brain inherently and spontaneously (without any conscious or decisional processes) uses higher-level meaningful categorization information to interpret ambiguous (morph) shapes.

The influence of another’s actions and presence on perspective taking

The ability to take each other’s visuospatial perspective has been linked to people’s capacity to perceive another’s action possibilities and to predict their actions. Research has also shown that visuospatial perspective taking is supported by one’s own mental own-body transformation. However, how these two processes of action perception and visuospatial perspective taking might interact remains largely unknown. By introducing seven angular disparities between participants and the model in the stimuli pictures across “Action” and “No Action” conditions, we investigated whether the observation of a goal-directed action facilitates perspective taking and whether this facilitation depends on the level of mental own-body transformation required to take perspective. The results showed that action observation facilitated performance independently of the level of mental-own body transformation. The processes behind this facilitation could involve anatomical mapping that is independent of the congruency between the participants’ and the model’s perspectives. Further, we replicated previous research findings, showing that participants were more accurate and faster when taking the perspective of a person compared to an inanimate object (a chair). The strongest facilitation effects were seen at the highest angular disparities between participants and the model in the stimuli pictures. Together, these findings enhance our knowledge of the mechanisms behind visuospatial perspective taking.

Determining the influence of sandwich-type components on the load of a hatch cover in a universal open wagon

The object of the study reported here is the processes of occurrence, perception, and redistribution of loads in the improved structure of the hatch cover in a universal open wagon. In order to reduce the load on the cover of an open wagon hatch, and, accordingly, to improve its strength, it is proposed to improve its design by introducing sandwich components. The thickness of the sheets that form the hatch cover has been determined. The dynamic loading of the hatch cover in the vertical plane was studied. It was found that the accelerations acting on the hatch cover with the proposed improvement are almost 20 % lower than those acting on the typical structure. The basic strength indicators of the hatch cover under the operational modes of its load have been determined. The results of the calculation showed that the maximum stresses in the hatch cover are 22 % lower than permissible ones. In addition, within the framework of the study, the main indicators of the dynamics of the open wagon equipped with the proposed structure of hatch covers were determined. The movement of the open wagon under the condition of movement in an empty state is rated as "good". At the same time, the maximum accelerations in the center of mass of the supporting structure of an open wagon were 4.6 m/s2, and the coefficient of vertical dynamics was about 0.6. Special features of the results within the framework of this study are that the proposed improvement of the hatch cover helps improve its strength by reducing the dynamic load, and not by strengthening the structure. The scope of practical application of the results is the engineering industry, in particular, railroad transport. The conditions for the practical use of the research results are the use of energy-absorbing material in the sandwich-type components that form the hatch cover. The study reported here could contribute to devising recommendations for the construction of components in the structures of modern freight cars, thereby reducing the costs of maintaining them in operation, as well as increasing the profitability of railroad transportation

Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels in Sebastes schlegelii: Genome-wide identification and ThermoTRP expression analysis under high-temperature

Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) channels, essential for sensing environmental stimuli, are widely distributed. Among them, thermosensory TRP channels play a crucial role in temperature sensing and regulation. Sebastes schlegelii, a significant aquatic economic species, exhibits sensitivity to temperature across multiple aspects. In this study, we identified 18 SsTRP proteins using whole-genome scanning. Motif analysis revealed motif 2 in all TRP proteins, with conserved motifs in subfamilies. TRP-related domains, anchored repeats, and ion-transmembrane domains were found. Chromosome analysis showed 18 TRP genes on 11 chromosomes and a scaffold. Phylogenetics classified SsTRPs into four subfamilies: TRPM, TRPA, TRPV, and TRPC. In diverse organisms, four monophyletic subfamilies were identified. Additionally, we identified key TRP genes with significantly upregulated transcription levels under short-term (30 min) and long-term (3 days) exposure at 24 °C (optimal elevated temperature) and 27 °C (critical high temperature). We propose that genes upregulated at 30 min may be involved in the primary response process of temperature sensing, while genes upregulated at 3 days may participate in the secondary response process of temperature perception. This study lays the foundation for understanding the regulatory mechanisms of TRPs responses to environmental stimuli in S. schlegelii and other fishes.

Discussion of the role of perception in visualization: From Cleveland to Heer, we understand how much and why it is important

This paper starts with the literature review from Cleveland to Heer, and deeply discusses the role of perception in the visualization process, and the importance of understanding this role. The study points out that visualization is not only a process of conveying data, but also a process of interacting with the audience's perception. Effective visualization leads viewers to better understand and interpret the data, which also relies on a deep understanding of the perceptual process. By exploring the role of perception in the visualization, this paper highlights the importance of perception in the design process, and provides designers with suggestions on how to better utilize perceptual principles to improve the effectiveness and influence of data visualization.

Neuropsychological assessment of the morphofunctional organization of humour perception processes

A review of studies analysing the process of humour perception under normal conditions and its disturbances in brain damage is presented. The perception of humour is considered to be a multicomponent mental activity that occurs through a series of cognitive and affective processes characterized by a specific brain organization. The results of studies on the perception of humour in healthy people and in patients with brain damage are largely inconsistent: neuroimaging studies confirm the important role of structures of both hemispheres of the brain, while clinical data indicate a significant contribution of structures of the right hemisphere to the perception of humour. Studies on humour perception in healthy individuals and clinical studies have found no differences between the neuronal correlates of verbal and non-verbal humour perception. A neuropsychological approach to the study of the structure of the process of humour perception may be important for diagnosis of affective and cognitive disorders in patients with brain damage, as difficulties in the perception of humour may reflect disturbances of the most subtle aspects of the functioning and interaction of cognitive and emotional-personal processes.

Face adaptation induces duration distortion of subsequent face stimuli in a face category-specific manner.

Studies have shown that duration perception depends on several visual processes. However, the stages of visual processes that contribute to duration perception remain unclear. This study examined the effects of categorical differences in face adaptation on perceived duration. In all the experiments, we compared the perceived durations of human, monkey, and cat faces (comparison stimuli) after adapting to a human face. Results revealed that the human comparison stimuli were perceived shorter than the monkey and cat comparison stimuli (categorical face adaptation on duration perception [CFAD]). The difference between the face categories disappeared when the adapting stimulus was rendered unrecognizable by phase scrambling, indicating that adaptation to low-level visual properties cannot fully account for the CFAD effect. Furthermore, CFAD was preserved but attenuated when the adapting stimulus was inverted or a 1,000-ms interval was inserted before the comparison stimuli, which implied that CFAD occurred as long as the adapting stimulus was perceived as a face and not simply based on conceptual category processes. These findings indicate that face adaptation affects perceived duration in a category-specific manner (the CFAD effect) and highlights the involvement of visual categorical processes in duration perception.

Divergent mechanisms of perceptual reversals in spinning and wobbling structure-from-motion stimuli.

This study explores the visual phenomenon of random dot structure-from-motion (SFM), where the brain perceives 3D shapes from the coordinated 2D motion of dots. Observing SFM may lead to ambiguous depth relations that reverse back and forth during prolonged viewing. I demonstrate that different processes are involved in triggering perceived reversals for identical SFM shapes involved in spinning and wobbling motion. Durations of stable percepts were measured while human participants viewed the two SFM stimuli, and also a static Necker figure, and a wobbling Necker figure for two sets of 2.5 minutes each. The results showed that wobbling SFM resulted in much longer stable durations compared to the other stimuli. The durations for the wobbling SFM stimuli was not correlated with the spinning SFM, or the two Necker stimuli. Yet, such correlations were obtained between the other stimuli. It is known that reversals obtained while viewing spinning SFM stimuli involves bottom-up driven adaptation and recovery cycles between neural populations. This result suggests that wobbling SFM efficiently deactivates this process and targets other contributions to the reversals, such as top-down processes. In addition, biases observed in the first set disappeared in the second set implying influences of learning between the sets. Imagery vividness, which measures intrinsic top-down processes, was also scored but no correlation between scores in visual imagery and reversal rates were obtained. This research provides insight into the complex interplay between bottom-up driven adaptation-recovery cycles, and top-down processes in ambiguous perception.

The Gaze of Schizophrenia Patients Captured by Bottom-up Saliency

Schizophrenia (SCHZ) notably impacts various human perceptual modalities, including vision. Prior research has identified marked abnormalities in perceptual organization in SCHZ, predominantly attributed to deficits in bottom-up processing. Our study introduces a novel paradigm to differentiate the roles of top-down and bottom-up processes in visual perception in SCHZ. We analysed eye-tracking fixation ground truth maps from 28 SCHZ patients and 25 healthy controls (HC), comparing these with two mathematical models of visual saliency: one bottom-up, based on the physical attributes of images, and the other top-down, incorporating machine learning. While the bottom-up (GBVS) model revealed no significant overall differences between groups (beta = 0.01, p = 0.281, with a marginal increase in SCHZ patients), it did show enhanced performance by SCHZ patients with highly salient images. Conversely, the top-down (EML-Net) model indicated no general group difference (beta = −0.03, p = 0.206, lower in SCHZ patients) but highlighted significantly reduced performance in SCHZ patients for images depicting social interactions (beta = −0.06, p < 0.001). Over time, the disparity between the groups diminished for both models. The previously reported bottom-up bias in SCHZ patients was apparent only during the initial stages of visual exploration and corresponded with progressively shorter fixation durations in this group. Our research proposes an innovative approach to understanding early visual information processing in SCHZ patients, shedding light on the interplay between bottom-up perception and top-down cognition.

Landau model for illustrating the learning and unlearning process of nociplastic pain.

Recent advancements in understanding the consolidation of nociplastic pain point to a complex, non-conscious learned process of threat perception. Neurobiological pain education is emerging as a promising approach to unlearn nociplastic pain, supported by biopsychosocial tools such as exposure to movement, mindfulness, and group sharing formats. However, this approach is still not well-known among clinicians and the society at large, creating a communication problem that unfortunately perpetuates the suffering of patients. Herein, we propose a Landau model to describe the learning and unlearning process of nociplastic pain, aiming to clarify this complex situation and facilitate communication across different sectors of the society. Nociplastic pain corresponds to a first-order transition, with attention more likely in the alert-protection state than in the trust-explore state. Two appealing results of the model are that the perception of the critical context depends on personal history regarding the symptom and that biopsychosocial loops are formed when there is alarming learned historical information about the symptom, along with confused and contradictory expert information, as seen in nocebo messages. Learning and unlearning in the model correspond to a chang in control parametrs that can weigh more on the alert-protection state, trust-explore state, uncertain state or neutral state. This description clarifies why neurobiological education is the foundational therapy from which others must be built to embody the accessible, clear, and trustworthy information.

Reforming Education in Ukraine Through the Introduction of STEM Technologies and Artificial Intelligence

The relevance of the article is that in today’s world of changes, there is a realization that in all spheres of public life, the achievements of science and culture, the new needs in the modernization of the education system of Ukraine. One of the possible ways of further development of this sphere is not only education reforms, but also innovations, i.e. controlled processes of emergence, perception, evaluation, development and application of innovations. The purpose of the article is to identify legislative innovations in the reform of education in Ukraine, innovative types of educational institutions in accordance with the reform, defining the essence of education reforms and innovations and features of the reform of the system of university education. It is possible to distinguish between reforms at the national and interagency (i.e., only within the education system) level, but any interstate reform is always coordinated with the highest state leadership and is accompanied by reforms in other spheres. Legislative innovations in reforming education in Ukraine are also introduced through pedagogical innovations - those innovations that are developed and implemented by state agencies and organizations of education and science. The article identifies innovative types of educational institutions in Ukraine in accordance with the reform, the innovative processes in the education system are studied; the essence of education reforms and innovations and peculiarities of the reform of the basic and university education system of Ukraine are defined.

Объединение теорий прогностической обработ­ки и когнитивного диссонанса в контексте проблемы рационального выбора

A significant problem in constructing the theory of rational choice (and rationality in gen­eral) at the moment is the question of explaining irrationality, or rather the fact that an agent can act irrationally for an external observer, and the models used for it may not work. However, the agent himself “inside”, if you find yourself in his “logic”, acts clearly rationally upon verification. It’s just that his “rationality” and the “rationality” of an ex­ternal observer turn out to be different, hence they do not coincide, and hence this leads to a discrepancy in the language of their description of each other. To resolve this prob­lem and find a theoretical basis for the connection between the physiological states of or­ganisms and testable the theoretical constructs, and thus obtaining the opportunity, with­out changing the optics, to work with all agents, regardless of the types of rationality they have, psychological approaches have increasingly become involved. But for them, the basic problem is always “rootedness” in the “material substrate”. This work largely suggests and shows which mechanism can allow this problem to be solved. The paper draws atten­tion to the fact that the combination of the theory of predictive processing and the theory of cognitive dissonance turns out to be extremely promising for this task. This is due to the fact that both of these theories are engaged in reducing surprise or inconsistency (prediction errors and dissonance), with the former providing the latter with valuable and informative context within the broader perception – prediction – action framework (known as active inference) and also helps us to separate dissonant cognitive elements from dissonant psychological states, while considering them as part of the same process of perception and cognition. All this allows us to set a fundamental theoretical basis for the connection between the physiological states of organisms and testable theoretical con­structs about the degree of rationality of a particular agent, and, thus, gain access to the internal information processes in the brain for study.

Healing Perceptual Process in Autism Spectrum Disorder or Initial Misdiagnosis?

Healing Perceptual Process in Autism Spectrum Disorder or Initial Misdiagnosis?

A synthetic human-centric dataset generation pipeline for active robotic vision

Active vision aims to equip computer vision methods with the ability to dynamically adjust the capturing sensor’s viewpoint, position, or parameters in real time. This dynamic capability allows for improving the accuracy of the perception process. However, training and evaluating an active vision model often requires a large number of annotated images captured under different sensor and environmental settings, in order to emulate actions like moving around, approaching, or moving away from a person and thus effectively model the active perception dynamics. Obviously, collecting and annotating such datasets is a challenging and expensive task. To overcome these limitations, this paper introduces a synthetic image generation pipeline specifically designed to support active vision tasks. The pipeline is developed using a highly realistic simulation framework based on Unity and allows for the generation of images depicting humans, captured at varying view angles, distances, illumination conditions, and backgrounds, supporting a wide range of different tasks. Two annotated datasets, namely ActiveHuman and ActiveFace, are generated using the pipeline and the effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by a solid use case that involves training and evaluating an embedding-based active face recognizer. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the proposed generation approach enables expanding existing active face recognition methods by training models that control both the left/right movements, as well as the distance to a subject, leveraging the additional information provided by ActiveFace dataset. To facilitate replication and encourage the use of the generated datasets for training and evaluating other active vision approaches, the associated assets and the developed dataset generation pipeline is to become publicly available.

Musically-acoustic thesaurus as spatial dimension of cognitive process

Relevance. This article explores the intricate relationship between the musically-acoustic thesaurus � encompassing both musical and extra-musical elements � and cognitive processes, emphasizing the spatial dimension of cognition within auditory experiences.Purpose. The primary aim is to dissect the structure and function of the musically-acoustic thesaurus in individual and collective cognitive domains, highlighting its role in encoding and navigating the acoustic environment and its impact on musical and emotional experiences.Methodology. Through a comprehensive analysis of the auditory activity, the study examines how sonic phenomena, both musical and non-musical, are categorized, internalized, and utilized within human cognition. It considers the sonic environment's organization and how it influences the perception and emotional engagement with music and sound.Results. The findings indicate that the musically-acoustic thesaurus serves as a crucial framework for understanding and interacting with the acoustic world. It delineates how sounds are integrated into a complex network of cognitive processes, facilitating orientation in space-time, enabling emotional experiences, and fostering an aesthetic appreciation of the acoustic environment.Conclusions. The musically-acoustic thesaurus emerges as a pivotal element in the cognitive processing of sound, underscoring its dual role in practical orientation and emotional-aesthetic experiences. The study reveals that this thesaurus not only aids in navigating the sonic landscape but also enriches the individual's interaction with music and sound, thereby significantly contributing to the broader understanding of cognitive processes in auditory perception.

Comprehensive analysis of the perception of commemoration sites by St. Petersburg residents

The paper represents the author’s model of comprehensive analysis of perception, as well as the experience of using it to diagnose the perception of the commemoration sites by the residents of St. Petersburg and to identify the features of perception os such places by “generation Z” representatives. Perception in the work is considered as a complex phenomenon, whereas the subject of perception records the formal, meaningful and dynamic parameters of object, forms, and then represents (returns) its image. To assess the characteristics of the perception process, the author use the approach based on three types of analysis: phenomenological, structural, dynamic. Commemoration sites are considered as objects typical of the natural, psychosocial and social environment. The field study is based on the survey of residents of St. Petersburg of four generations are presented (from “generation Z” to “generation raised in the USSR”). Such stratification allows us to consider the space of memory of St. Petersburg through the prism of the transfer of social capital. The study used locations identified by respondents as commemoration sites. Based on the results of the analysis of the respondents’ answers, the authors obtained the results showing the reproduction of commemoration sites as social, historical and cultural objects of perception, noted the evolution of the semantic load on individual locations, and confirmed the hypothesis about the preservation of the basic model of perception in all generations.

The Impact of Consumer Perception on Buying: Decision Process of Environment-friendly Tupperware Products in Makassar City

This study aims to identify the impact of consumer perception on the buying decision process of environmenta-friendly Tupperware products in Makassar City. The research type is descriptive qualitative research to explain facts in the field. The data collection techniques include observations, interviews, and documentation. The data are analyzed in three steps. The first step is data reduction focusing on the selection, simplification, abstraction, and transformation of raw data from the field records. The second stage is data presentation by compiling information into statements that allow conclusion drawing. The third stage is conclusion drawing based on data reduction and presentation. The research results indicate that consumer perception has a positive impact on the buying decision process of environment-friendly Tupperware products in Makassar City. This can be seen from the selective perception process, which is a part of consumer perception that consists of exposure, attention, comprehension, and retention steps, suggesting that most informants follow these steps in the buying decision process of the desired Tupperware products.&#x0D; Keywords: perception, consumer, buying decision