Scene Location Research Articles

Semantic object-scene inconsistencies affect eye movements, but not in the way predicted by contextualized meaning maps.

Semantic information is important in eye movement control. An important semantic influence on gaze guidance relates to object-scene relationships: objects that are semantically inconsistent with the scene attract more fixations than consistent objects. One interpretation of this effect is that fixations are driven toward inconsistent objects because they are semantically more informative. We tested this explanation using contextualized meaning maps, a method that is based on crowd-sourced ratings to quantify the spatial distribution of context-sensitive “meaning” in images. In Experiment 1, we compared gaze data and contextualized meaning maps for images, in which objects-scene consistency was manipulated. Observers fixated more on inconsistent versus consistent objects. However, contextualized meaning maps did not assign higher meaning to image regions that contained semantic inconsistencies. In Experiment 2, a large number of raters evaluated image-regions, which were deliberately selected for their content and expected meaningfulness. The results suggest that the same scene locations were experienced as slightly less meaningful when they contained inconsistent compared to consistent objects. In summary, we demonstrated that — in the context of our rating task — semantically inconsistent objects are experienced as less meaningful than their consistent counterparts and that contextualized meaning maps do not capture prototypical influences of image meaning on gaze guidance.

Recent Articles

Recent Articles

Contextual vs. probabilistic learning of target locations in scenes differentially facilitate retrieval and attentional orienting

Contextual vs. probabilistic learning of target locations in scenes differentially facilitate retrieval and attentional orienting

Multi-UAVs Collaborative Cinematography for Complex Dynamic Scenes

<p indent="0mm">For real-time shooting of complex dynamic scenes, people still rely on controlling manually now. For automatically and completely shooting this kind of scene, a feasible solution is proposed, which divides the problem into 3 sub problems: scene segmentation, photography composition, and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) scheduling. First, on scene segmentation, <italic>K</italic>-means clustering is utilized with threshold to get a series of small segmented scenes. Each small scene is corresponded by a single UAV. Then, according to the location of these small scenes, the best shooting positions of UAVs are calculated, which ensure that each small scene is shot completely and meanwhile the pictures shot by different UAVs are relevant and holistic. Finally, in order to minimize the total flight distance and flight cost of the UAV group, the UAV flight scheduling problem is turned into a task assignment problem, where Hungarian algorithm is applied to determine the final shooting positions for each UAV to complete its corresponding shooting task. By this way, a complex dynamic scene can be continuously shot in real-time. Experiments in simulation program shows that the algorithm can provide effective control on multiple UAVs to continuously and automatically shoot a complex dynamic scene, including all the objects inside the scene from multi-view in real-time. By observing trajectories of UAVs and objects’ positions in shooting results, it is sure that proposed method produces results with much higher quality comparing with the naive method of average view division.

MTG: Context-Based Music Composition for Tabletop Role-Playing Games

This project aims to compose background music in real-time for tabletop role-playing games. To accomplish this goal, we propose a system called MTG that listens to players' speeches in order to recognize the context of the current scene and generate background music to match the scene. A speech recognition system is used to transcribe players' speeches to text and a supervised learning algorithm detects when scene transitions take place. In its current version, a scene transition occurs whenever the emotional state of the narrative changes. Moreover, the background music is not generated, but selected based on its emotion from a library of hand-authored pieces. As future work, we plan to generate the background music considering the current scene context and the probability of scene transition. We also consider to retrieve more information from the narrative to detect scene transitions, such as the scene's location and time of the day as well as actions taken by characters.

Regia ri-mediata e partecipativa

Re-mediated and participated direction: a case study by Compagnia Deflorian Tagliarini is an essay focused on the travelling site-specific performance, Quando non so cosa fare cosa faccio? (2016), based on Antonio Pietrangeli’s film Io la conoscevo bene (1965). The two opening paragraphs present an essential theatrography of the Rome-based company, created in 2009 by Daria Deflorian and Antonio Tagliarini (both performers, authors and directors) and their aesthetic of theatre, between performance and theatre, autobiographical elements and reuse of other artistic objects. In this way, the company’s work is part of a precise scenario, belonging to other Italian companies between late xx and early xxi centuries. The main paragraph analyses the case study, clarifying the relationship between the performance itself and the film as a trace of: the environment (the roman neighborhood “Marconi” where the performance took place is the same location of many scenes from the film); the themes and how they are connected between the fictional history of the film character, Adriana, and the real biography of the performer; moreover, the film-perspective is a way to guide the spectator, his/hers involvement, his/hers glance is a sort of framing guided from the inside of the travelling performance.

Microbiomes in forensic botany: a review.

Fragments of botanical material can often be found at crime scenes (on live and dead bodies, or on incriminating objects) and can provide circumstantial evidence on various aspects of forensic investigations such as determining crime scene locations, times of death or possession of illegal species. Morphological and genetic analysis are the most commonly applied methods to analyze plant fragment evidence but are limited by their low capacity to differentiate between potential source locations, especially at local scales. Here, we review the current applications and limitations of current plant fragment analysis for forensic investigations and introduce the potential of microbiome analysis to complement the existing forensic plant fragment analysis toolkit. The potential for plant fragment provenance identification at geographic scales meaningful to forensic investigations warrants further investigation of the phyllosphere microbiome in this context. To that end we identify three key areas of future research: 1) Retrieval of microbial DNA of sufficient quality and quantity from botanical material; 2) Variability of the phyllosphere microbiome at different taxonomic and spatial scales, with explicit reference to assignment capacity; 3) Impacts on assignment capacity of time, seasonality and movement of fragments between locations. The development of robust microbiome analysis tools for forensic purposes in botanical material could increase the evidentiary value of the botanical evidence commonly encountered in casework, aiding in the identification of crime scene locations.

Neurons including hippocampal spatial view cells, and navigation in primates including humans

A new theory is proposed of mechanisms of navigation in primates including humans in which spatial view cells found in the primate hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus are used to guide the individual from landmark to landmark. The navigation involves approach to each landmark in turn (taxis), using spatial view cells to identify the next landmark in the sequence, and does not require a topological map. Two other cell types found in primates, whole body motion cells, and head direction cells, can be utilized in the spatial view cell navigational mechanism, but are not essential. If the landmarks become obscured, then the spatial view representations can be updated by self-motion (idiothetic) path integration using spatial coordinate transform mechanisms in the primate dorsal visual system to transform from egocentric to allocentric spatial view coordinates. A continuous attractor network or time cells or working memory is used in this approach to navigation to encode and recall the spatial view sequences involved. I also propose how navigation can be performed using a further type of neuron found in primates, allocentric-bearing-to-a-landmark neurons, in which changes of direction are made when a landmark reaches a particular allocentric bearing. This is useful if a landmark cannot be approached. The theories are made explicit in models of navigation, which are then illustrated by computer simulations. These types of navigation are contrasted with triangulation, which requires a topological map. It is proposed that the first strategy utilizing spatial view cells is used frequently in humans, and is relatively simple because primates have spatial view neurons that respond allocentrically to locations in spatial scenes. An advantage of this approach to navigation is that hippocampal spatial view neurons are also useful for episodic memory, and for imagery.

Robust Chromatic Adaptation Based Color Correction Technology for Underwater Images

Recovering correct or at least realistic colors of underwater scenes is a challenging issue for image processing due to the unknown imaging conditions including the optical water type, scene location, illumination, and camera settings. With the assumption that the illumination of the scene is uniform, a chromatic adaptation-based color correction technology is proposed in this paper to remove the color cast using a single underwater image without any other information. First, the underwater RGB image is first linearized to make its pixel values proportional to the light intensities arrived at the pixels. Second, the illumination is estimated in a uniform chromatic space based on the white-patch hypothesis. Third, the chromatic adaptation transform is implemented in the device-independent XYZ color space. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations both show that the proposed method outperforms the other test methods in terms of color restoration, especially for the images with severe color cast. The proposed method is simple yet effective and robust, which is helpful in obtaining the in-air images of underwater scenes.

Objective evaluation study on the shortest time interval from fire department departure to hospital arrival in emergency medical services using a global positioning system ― potential for time savings during ambulance running

In Japan, the transport time of patients by ambulance is increasing annually, yet it is not clear how this is affected by the extension of ambulance driving time. Using data obtained from a global positioning system (GPS), we used simulations to examine how emergency medical technician (EMT) activity time could be reduced. The research period was from September 14 to November 15, 2016. A total of 68 patients who had been transported to the tertiary emergency medical facility at Saitama Medical Center, Jichi Medical University were targeted. Global positioning system (GPS) information obtained from probes deployed in each ambulance was matched with emergency medical services (EMS) records to identify distance, acceleration, EMT activity time, and scene location. Response time (RT) was compared between cases when the ambulance was dispatched from the nearest fire department (FD), from another FD, and assuming the ambulance was dispatched from the nearest FD. Additionally, we extracted data on congested roads, simulated cases in which road congestion was assumed to be improved, and examined whether time was statistically reduced. Average emergency vehicle running time to the scene (EVs) in 35 cases (51.5%) dispatched from the closest FD was 4.3 ± 1.47 min (Group A). In 30 cases (44.1%) dispatched from another FD, EVs was 7.2 ± 3.59 min (Group B). In 3 cases (4.4%) dispatched when returning to the FD, EVs was 8.0 ± 5.10 min. For Group B, EVs for a simulated dispatch from the nearest FD was 4.0 ± 2.12 min (Group C). The relationships between Groups A and B and Groups B and C were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The average emergency vehicle running time to the emergency department (EVemd) in 39 cases (57%) in which the ambulance did not pass a speed reduction zone was 8.2 ± 4.56 min (Group D). In 29 cases (43%) in which the ambulance did pass it, EVemd was 15.2 ± 4.81 min (Group E). For Group E, EVemd for a simulated route without speed reduction was 12.1 ± 3.51 min (Group F). The relationship between Groups E and F was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Ultimately, this study identified issues that reduced EMT activity time by analyzing GPS data in an urban area; analyzing such GPS data may illuminate regional issues regarding ambulance driving.

Effects of prior knowledge on active vision and memory in younger and older adults.

In our daily lives we rely on prior knowledge to make predictions about the world around us such as where to search for and locate common objects. Yet, equally important in visual search is the ability to inhibit such processes when those predictions fail. Mounting evidence suggests that relative to younger adults, older adults have difficulty retrieving episodic memories and inhibiting prior knowledge, even when that knowledge is detrimental to the task at hand. However, the consequences of these age-related changes for visual search remain unclear. In the present study, we used eye movement monitoring to investigate whether overreliance on prior knowledge alters the gaze patterns and performance of older adults during visual search. Younger and older adults searched for target objects in congruent or incongruent locations in real-world scenes. As predicted, targets in congruent locations were detected faster than targets in incongruent locations, and this effect was enhanced in older adults. Analysis of viewing behavior revealed that prior knowledge effects emerged early in search, as evidenced by initial saccades, and continued throughout search, with greater viewing of congruent regions by older relative to younger adults, suggesting that schema biasing of online processing increases with age. Finally, both younger and older adults showed enhanced memory for the location of congruent targets and the identity of incongruent targets, with schema-guided viewing during search predicting poor memory for schema-incongruent targets in younger adults on both tasks. Our results provide novel evidence that older adults' overreliance on prior knowledge has consequences for both active vision and memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Characteristics of scene trauma patients discharged within 24-hours of air medical transport.

Introduction:Helicopters play an important role in trauma; however, this service comes with safety risks, high transport costs, and downstream care charges.Objective:Our objective was to determine the characteristics of early discharged trauma patients (<24 h length of stay) in order to reduce overtriage.Methodology:Data were obtained from the trauma registries at one of two Level 1 trauma centers. Eligible patients included all scene trauma patients transported by helicopter to the Level 1 trauma centers from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017, who had a length of stay of 24 h or less. Patient factors such as age, gender, scene location, loaded miles, and transportation costs were collected. Trauma type, mechanism of injury, Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS), Injury Severity Score, Revised Trauma Score, and prehospital vital signs were documented. Driving distances between the accident scene to local hospital, home of record to local hospital, and home of record to the Level I trauma center were also calculated for patients transported to Level 1 trauma center.Results:Two hundred and twenty-six of 1042 total patients (21.7%) were discharged within 24 h of helicopter transport from the accident scene to trauma center. Less than 2% of patients were in the age group of 70 years or older. Only 2 (0.88%) patients discharged within 24 h had a prehospital systolic blood pressure <90 mmHg. For patients transported to Level 1 trauma center, the average loaded miles were 50.51 ± 14.99, with average transport charges being $27,921.19± $3536.61. Twenty-one percent of Level 1 trauma center patients were self-pay, and families typically drove 71.7 ± 123.23 miles to Level 1 trauma center versus 28.74 ± 40.62 to their local emergency department.Conclusions:A significant number of patients transported from the scene are discharged within 24 h of admission to a trauma center. These patients rarely have prehospital hypotension, do not receive significant volumes of crystalloid resuscitation, and are infrequently over 70 years of age. One in five patients has no third-party coverage and assumes $27,921.19 in average transport charges.

Acoustic Scene Classification With Squeeze-Excitation Residual Networks

Acoustic scene classification (ASC) is a problem related to the field of machine listening whose objective is to classify/tag an audio clip in a predefined label describing a scene location (e. g. park, airport, etc.). Many state-of-the-art solutions to ASC incorporate data augmentation techniques and model ensembles. However, considerable improvements can also be achieved only by modifying the architecture of convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In this work we propose two novel squeeze-excitation blocks to improve the accuracy of a CNN-based ASC framework based on residual learning. The main idea of squeeze-excitation blocks is to learn spatial and channel-wise feature maps independently instead of jointly as standard CNNs do. This is usually achieved by some global grouping operators, linear operators and a final calibration between the input of the block and its obtained relationships. The behavior of the block that implements such operators and, therefore, the entire neural network, can be modified depending on the input to the block, the established residual configurations and the selected non-linear activations. The analysis has been carried out using the TAU Urban Acoustic Scenes 2019 dataset (https://zenodo.org/record/2589280) presented in the 2019 edition of the DCASE challenge. All configurations discussed in this document exceed the performance of the baseline proposed by the DCASE organization by 13\% percentage points. In turn, the novel configurations proposed in this paper outperform the residual configurations proposed in previous works.

Progression from Feature-Specific Brain Activity to Hippocampal Binding during Episodic Encoding.

The hallmark of episodic memory is recollecting multiple perceptual details tied to a specific spatial-temporal context. To remember an event, it is therefore necessary to integrate such details into a coherent representation during initial encoding. Here we tested how the brain encodes and binds multiple, distinct kinds of features in parallel, and how this process evolves over time during the event itself. We analyzed data from 27 human subjects (16 females, 11 males) who learned a series of objects uniquely associated with a color, a panoramic scene location, and an emotional sound while fMRI data were collected. By modeling how brain activity relates to memory for upcoming or just-viewed information, we were able to test how the neural signatures of individual features as well as the integrated event changed over the course of encoding. We observed a striking dissociation between early and late encoding processes: left inferior frontal and visuo-perceptual signals at the onset of an event tracked the amount of detail subsequently recalled and were dissociable based on distinct remembered features. In contrast, memory-related brain activity shifted to the left hippocampus toward the end of an event, which was particularly sensitive to binding item color and sound associations with spatial information. These results provide evidence of early, simultaneous feature-specific neural responses during episodic encoding that predict later remembering and suggest that the hippocampus integrates these features into a coherent experience at an event transition.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Understanding and remembering complex experiences are crucial for many socio-cognitive abilities, including being able to navigate our environment, predict the future, and share experiences with others. Probing the neural mechanisms by which features become bound into meaningful episodes is a vital part of understanding how we view and reconstruct the rich detail of our environment. By testing memory for multimodal events, our findings show a functional dissociation between early encoding processes that engage lateral frontal and sensory regions to successfully encode event features, and later encoding processes that recruit hippocampus to bind these features together. These results highlight the importance of considering the temporal dynamics of encoding processes supporting multimodal event representations.

Vessel Detection and Tracking Method Based on Video Surveillance.

Ship detection and tracking is a basic task in any vessel traffic monitored area, whether marine or inland. It has a major impact on navigational safety and thus different systems and technologies are used to determine the best possible methods of detecting and identifying sailing units. Video monitoring is present in almost all of them, but it is usually operated manually and is used as a backup system. This is because of the difficulties in implementing an efficient and universal automatic detection method that would work in quickly alternating environmental conditions for all kind of sailing units—from kayaks to seagoing merchant vessels. This paper presents a method that allows the detection and tracking of ships using the video streams of existing monitoring systems for ports and rivers. The method and the results of experiments on three sets of data using cameras with different characteristics, settings, and scene locations are presented. The experiments were carried out in variable light and weather conditions, and a wide range of unit types were used as detection objectives. The results confirm the usability of the proposed solution; however, some minor issues were encountered in the presence of ships wakes or highly unfavourable weather conditions.

Cortical mechanisms of spatial hearing.

Humans and other animals use spatial hearing to rapidly localize events in the environment. However, neural encoding of sound location is a complex process involving thecomputation and integration of multiple spatial cues that are not represented directly in the sensory organ (the cochlea). Our understanding of these mechanisms has increased enormously in the past few years. Current research is focused on the contribution of animal models for understanding human spatial audition, the effects of behavioural demands on neural sound location encoding, the emergence of a cue-independent location representation in the auditory cortex, and the relationship between single-source and concurrent location encoding incomplex auditory scenes. Furthermore, computational modelling seeks to unravel how neural representations of sound source locations are derived from the complex binaural waveforms of real-life sounds. In this article, we review and integrate the latest insights from neurophysiological, neuroimaging and computational modelling studies of mammalian spatial hearing. We propose that the cortical representation of sound location emerges from recurrent processing taking place in a dynamic, adaptive network of early (primary) and higher-order (posterior-dorsal and dorsolateral prefrontal) auditory regions. This cortical network accommodates changing behavioural requirements and is especially relevant for processing the location of real-life, complex sounds and complex auditory scenes.

The Functional Consequences of Social Attention for Memory-guided Attention Orienting and Anticipatory Neural Dynamics.

Social attention when viewing natural social (compared with nonsocial) images has functional consequences on contextual memory in healthy human adults. In addition to attention affecting memory performance, strong evidence suggests that memory, in turn, affects attentional orienting. Here, we ask whether the effects of social processing on memory alter subsequent memory-guided attention orienting and corresponding anticipatory dynamics of 8-12 Hz alpha-band oscillations as measured with EEG. Eighteen young adults searched for targets in scenes that contained either social or nonsocial distracters and their memory precision tested. Subsequently, RT was measured as participants oriented to targets appearing in those scenes at either valid (previously learned) locations or invalid (different) locations. Memory precision was poorer for target locations in social scenes. In addition, distractor type moderated the validity effect during memory-guided attentional orienting, with a larger cost in RT when targets appeared at invalid (different) locations within scenes with social distractors. The poorer memory performance was also marked by reduced anticipatory dynamics of spatially lateralized 8-12 Hz alpha-band oscillations for scenes with social distractors. The functional consequences of a social attention bias therefore extend from memory to memory-guided attention orienting, a bidirectional chain that may further reinforce attentional biases.

Establishing Shot Type Affects Arousal and Cognitive Load During Transitions Between Novel Interior Locations in Films.

An “establishing shot” prefaces a scene in a movie with a wide shot of the scene’s location. It is meant to help viewers process a shift to a new location. Establishing shots can depict the actors in the space in which they will be acting, the exterior of a building, or the larger geographic context of the scene. While use of an establishing shot is standard filmmaking practice, some argue that establishing shots are unnecessary. This study sought to investigate how effective four types of establishing shots are at helping viewers process location shifts. Pupil diameter was recorded using a MangoldVision eye tracking system as a measure of arousal and cognitive load. Oxygenation levels in the prefrontal cortex provided an additional measure of cognitive load assessed through functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We expected scene transitions to be followed by transient increases in pupil diameter and oxygenation levels, suggesting increased cognitive load and arousal. We predicted that participants should experience less cognitive load and arousal after a transition to a new scene when that scene has been prefaced with an establishing shot and that these effects would be greatest for establishing shots that depict actors. We found that geographic establishing shots produced significantly lower average pupil diameter than all other establishing shot types and the use of no establishing shot. Actors establishing shots elicited significantly lower average pupil diameter values than the use of no establishing shot. Maximum and average oxygenation values for the actors establishing shot condition were significantly higher than for the exterior establishing shot condition. An alpha level of 0.05 was used for all analyses. These results suggest differences between pupil diameter and fNIRS in terms of the psychological phenomenon they measure, and may inform the design of future films.

Analysis of Transport to an American College of Surgeons Level I Trauma Center

IntroductionEfficient patient transportation by ground emergency medical services (GEMS) or helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) to a trauma center is vital for optimal care. We investigated differences between the modes of transport in terms of demographics, injury, scene location, and outcome. SettingMorristown Medical Center (MMC), Morristown, NJ MethodsAll 903 trauma admissions in 2016 by advanced life support (ALS) to MMC, a Level I Trauma Center, were retrospectively analyzed. Results22% of admissions were HEMS and 78% were GEMS. HEMS patients had higher Injury Severity Scores (ISS) (p<0.001); however, mortality and length of stay were not statistically different. The percentage of pediatric patients transported by HEMS that were discharged home after emergency department evaluation was greater than the older populations (p<0.001). Older age and higher ISS had the largest impact on mortality (p<0.001). ConclusionWe believe our current use of HEMS is adequate since patient outcomes between HEMS and GEMS was similar, even though HEMS patients have higher ISS. However, helicopter use in the pediatric population was over-utilized, possibly due to the scarcity of hospitals capable of managing pediatric traumas. Implementation of the Air Medical Prehospital Triage scoring system may also help correct for these unnecessary HEMS transports.

A Moving Object Indoor Tracking Model Based on Semiactive RFID

Aimed at the weak anti-interference and low accuracy problem of moving object indoor tracking based RFID, a moving object indoor tracking model based on semiactive RFID is presented. This model acquires scene location information through RFID low frequency triggers preinstalled, which can enhance the anti-interference ability. This model adopts an improved particle filter algorithm, which can increase the diversity of the particles, overcome the particle impoverishment, and reduce the tracking error. Simulation results indicate that the model can achieve better tracking performances. Compared with standard particle filter, the improved algorithm performance is better in the capability of tracking accuracy and robust and is more suitable for indoor tracking application in the complicated environments.