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Title: Exploiting audiovisual attention for visual coding.
Creator: Torres, Freddy., College of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Perceptual video coding has been a promising area during the last years. Increases in compression ratios have been reported by applying foveated video coding techniques where the region of interest (ROI) is selected by using a computational attention model. However, most of the approaches for perceptual video coding only use visual features ignoring the auditory component. In recent physiological studies, it has been demonstrated that auditory stimuli affects our visual perception. In this...
Show morePerceptual video coding has been a promising area during the last years. Increases in compression ratios have been reported by applying foveated video coding techniques where the region of interest (ROI) is selected by using a computational attention model. However, most of the approaches for perceptual video coding only use visual features ignoring the auditory component. In recent physiological studies, it has been demonstrated that auditory stimuli affects our visual perception. In this work, we validate some of those physiological tests using complex video sequence. We designed and developed a web-based tool for video quality measurement. After conducting different experiments, we observed that in the general reaction time to detect video artifacts was higher when video was presented with the audio information. We observed that emotional information in audio guide human attention to particular ROI. We also observed that sound frequency change spatial frequency perception in still images.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3361251
Subject Headings: Digital video, Image processing, Digital techniques, Visual perception, Coding theory, Human-computer interaction, Intersensory effects
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Conscious and non-conscious bases of social judgement: mindset and implicit attitudes in the perception of intergroup conflict.
Creator: Sullivan, Susan D., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Research on social judgment typically emphasizes one of three processes that enable unequivocal understanding of events with ambiguous causality. In the social influence perspective, people are susceptible to the interpretations offered by others. In the explicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with their consciously held attitudes and values. In the implicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with unconscious biases. The model investigated in the...
Show moreResearch on social judgment typically emphasizes one of three processes that enable unequivocal understanding of events with ambiguous causality. In the social influence perspective, people are susceptible to the interpretations offered by others. In the explicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with their consciously held attitudes and values. In the implicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with unconscious biases. The model investigated in the present study assumes that these processes vary in salience depending on people's mindset. Participants with low versus high implicit racial bias toward Blacks read a narrative concerning this altercation under either a lowlevel or a high-level mindset and then read a summary that blamed one of the parties or they did not read a summary. As predicted, low-level participants allocated responsibility to the African-American if they had a high implicit racial bias and to the White if they had a low implicit racial bias, regardless of the summary manipulation. Contrary to prediction, however, high-level participants' allocation of responsibility did not reflect their explicit prejudicial attitudes. Instead, they corrected for their implicit biases in their trait inferences and affective reactions, in line with research suggesting that a high-level mindset promotes self-regulatory processes in social judgment.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3361259
Subject Headings: Interpersonal relations, Social perception, Persuasion (Psychology), Social aspects, Subconsciousness, Stereotypes (Social psychology), Self-management (Psychology)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Dynamic Grouping Motion and Amodal Completion.
Creator: Datta, Debarshi, Hock, Howard S., Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Objects in a scene are likely to occlude other objects partially and are itself likely to be partially occluded. A central question, therefore, is how the visual system resolves the resulting surface correspondence problem by successfully determining which surfaces belong to which objects. To this end, a recently developed dynamic grouping methodology has determined whether pairs of adjacent surfaces are grouped (Hock & Nichols, 2012). The grouping of adjacent surfaces, which depends on their...
Show moreObjects in a scene are likely to occlude other objects partially and are itself likely to be partially occluded. A central question, therefore, is how the visual system resolves the resulting surface correspondence problem by successfully determining which surfaces belong to which objects. To this end, a recently developed dynamic grouping methodology has determined whether pairs of adjacent surfaces are grouped (Hock & Nichols, 2012). The grouping of adjacent surfaces, which depends on their affinity state, is indicated by the direction of perceived motion across one surface when its luminance is perturbed. In the current stimuli, which consists of a horizontal surface partially occluded by a vertical bar, dynamic grouping also can occur for nonadjacent surfaces, providing they are linked in two-dimensions by a connecting surface. Results indicate that the dynamic grouping motion is stronger for amodal completion entailing the perceptual grouping of nonadjacent surfaces behind an occluder.
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Date Issued: 2017
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004998, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004988
Subject Headings: Dissertations, Academic -- Florida Atlantic University, Visual perception., Visual system., Dynamic grouping
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Face processing in persons with and without Alzheimer's disease.
Creator: Winchester, Jeanna., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences
Abstract/Description: This study aimed to understand the differences in strength or coordination of brain regions involved in processing faces in the presence of aging and/or progressing neuropathology (Alzheimer's disease). To this end, Experiment 1 evaluated age-related differences in basic face processing and the effects of familiarity in face processing. Overall, face processing in younger (22-35yrs) and older participants (63-83yrs) recruited a broadly distributed network of brain activity, but the...
Show moreThis study aimed to understand the differences in strength or coordination of brain regions involved in processing faces in the presence of aging and/or progressing neuropathology (Alzheimer's disease). To this end, Experiment 1 evaluated age-related differences in basic face processing and the effects of familiarity in face processing. Overall, face processing in younger (22-35yrs) and older participants (63-83yrs) recruited a broadly distributed network of brain activity, but the distribution of activity varied depending on the age of the individual. The younger population utilized regions of the occipitotemporal, medial frontal and posterior parietal cortices while the older population recruited a concentrated occipitotemporal network. The younger participants were also sensitive to the type of face presented, as Novel faces were associated with greater mean BOLD activity than either the Famous or Relatives faces. Interestingly, Relatives faces were associated with greater mean B OLD activity in more regions of the brain than found in any other analysis in Exp. 1, spanning the inferior frontal, medial temporal and inferior parietal cortices. In contrast, the older adults were not sensitive to the type of face presented, which could reflect a difference in cognitive strategies used by the older population when presented with this type of face stimuli. Experiment 2 evaluated face processing, familiarity in face processing and also emphasized the interactive roles autobiographical processing and memory recency play in processing familiar faces in mature adults (MA; 45-55yrs), older adults (OA; 70-92yrs) and patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD; 70-92yrs)., MA participants had greater mean BOLD activity values in more regions of the brain than observed in either of the older adult populations, spanning regions of the medial frontal, medial temporal, inferior parietal and occipital cortices. OA, in contrast, utilized a concentrated frontal and medial temporal network and AD participants had the greatest deficit in BOLD activity overall.Age-related differences in processing faces, in processing the type of face presented, in autobiographical information processing and in processing the recency of a memory were noted, as well as differences due to the deleterious effects of AD.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/199330
Subject Headings: Face perception, Cognition, Age factors, Human face recognition, Alzheimer's disease, Facial expression, Physiological aspects
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Functional constraints on young children's object problem solving.
Creator: Bidmead, Sarah, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Although some research has suggested that very young children are "immune" to functional fixedness (FF), other work has shown that young children form robust associations between objects and their prescribed functions. Across two studies, I investigated (a) the developmental trajectory of FF and (b) its relationship with executive function components (inhibitory control and working memory) in 3- to 6-year old children. Both older and younger children experience FF, but older children use...
Show moreAlthough some research has suggested that very young children are "immune" to functional fixedness (FF), other work has shown that young children form robust associations between objects and their prescribed functions. Across two studies, I investigated (a) the developmental trajectory of FF and (b) its relationship with executive function components (inhibitory control and working memory) in 3- to 6-year old children. Both older and younger children experience FF, but older children use familiar tools more flexibly than younger children (3- and 4-year olds). Furthermore, inhibitory control was related to overcoming FF, indicating that it may be an important cognitive capacity for creative problem-solving. Finally, in a third study, children were instructed to use mental imagery to help them solve the functional fixedness problems. However, these instructions were ineffective at reducing FF compared to a control condition, underscoring the robust nature of object-function relationships in early childhood.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3359286
Subject Headings: Learning, Psychology of, Developmental psychology, Cognition in children, Visual perception in chldren
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: 1/f structure of temporal fluctuation in rhythm performance and rhythmic coordination.
Creator: Rankin, Summer K., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences
Abstract/Description: This dissertation investigated the nature of pulse in the tempo fluctuation of music performance and how people entrain with these performed musical rhythms. In Experiment 1, one skilled pianist performed four compositions with natural tempo fluctuation. The changes in tempo showed long-range correlation and fractal (1/f) scaling for all four performances. To determine whether the finding of 1/f structure would generalize to other pianists, musical styles, and performance practices, fractal...
Show moreThis dissertation investigated the nature of pulse in the tempo fluctuation of music performance and how people entrain with these performed musical rhythms. In Experiment 1, one skilled pianist performed four compositions with natural tempo fluctuation. The changes in tempo showed long-range correlation and fractal (1/f) scaling for all four performances. To determine whether the finding of 1/f structure would generalize to other pianists, musical styles, and performance practices, fractal analyses were conducted on a large database of piano performances in Experiment 3. Analyses revealed signicant long-range serial correlations in 96% of the performances. Analysis showed that the degree of fractal structure depended on piece, suggesting that there is something in the composition's musical structure which causes pianists' tempo fluctuations to have a similar degree of fractal structure. Thus, musical tempo fluctuations exhibit long-range correlations and fractal scaling. To examine how people entrain to these temporal fluctuations, a series of behavioral experiments were conducted where subjects were asked to tap the pulse (beat) to temporally fluctuating stimuli. The stimuli for Experiment 2 were musical performances from Experiment 1, with mechanical versions serving as controls. Subjects entrained to all stimuli at two metrical levels, and predicted the tempo fluctuations observed in Experiment 1. Fractal analyses showed that the fractal structure of the stimuli was reected in the inter-tap intervals, suggesting a possible relationship between fractal tempo scaling, pulse perception, and entrainment. Experiments 4-7 investigated the extent to which people use long-range correlation and fractal scaling to predict tempo fluctuations in fluctuating rhythmic sequences., Both natural and synthetic long-range correlations enabled prediction, as well as shuffled versions which contained no long-term fluctuations. Fractal structure of the stimuli was again in the inter-tap intervals, with persistence for the fractal stimuli, and antipersistence for the shuffled stimuli. 1/f temporal structure is suficient though not necessary for prediction of fluctuations in a stimulus with large temporal fluctuations.
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Date Issued: 2010
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2705083
Subject Headings: Music, Psychological aspects, Emotions in music, Perceptual-motor learning, Computational neuroscience, Synchronization, Musical perception
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: 2D/3D face recognition.
Creator: Guan, Xin., College of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Abstract/Description: This dissertation introduces our work on face recognition using a novel approach based on creating 3D face model from 2D face images. Together with the pose angle estimation and illumination compensation, this method can be used successfully to recognize 2D faces with 3D recognition algorithms. The results reported here were obtained partially with our own face image database, which had 2D and 3D face images of 50 subjects, with 9 different pose angles. It is shown that by applying even the...
Show moreThis dissertation introduces our work on face recognition using a novel approach based on creating 3D face model from 2D face images. Together with the pose angle estimation and illumination compensation, this method can be used successfully to recognize 2D faces with 3D recognition algorithms. The results reported here were obtained partially with our own face image database, which had 2D and 3D face images of 50 subjects, with 9 different pose angles. It is shown that by applying even the simple PCA algorithm, this new approach can yield successful recognition rates using 2D probing images and 3D gallery images. The insight gained from the 2D/3D face recognition study was also extended to the case of involving 2D probing and 2D gallery images, which offers a more flexible approach since it is much easier and practical to acquire 2D photos for recognition. To test the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the public AT&T face database, which had 2D only face photos of 40 subjects, with 10 different images each, was utilized in the experimental study. The results from this investigation show that with our approach, the 3D recognition algorithm can be successfully applied to 2D only images. The performance of the proposed approach was further compared with some of the existing face recognition techniques. Studies on imperfect conditions such as domain and pose/illumination variations were also carried out. Additionally, the performance of the algorithms on noisy photos was evaluated. Pros and cons of the proposed face recognition technique along with suggestions for future studies are also given in the dissertation.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3342104
Subject Headings: Pattern recognition systems, Optical pattern recognition, Biometric identification, Face perception, Artificial intellingence
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: "I distinctly remember you!": an investigation of memory for faces with unusual features.
Creator: Keif, Autumn., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Many errors in recognition are made because various features of a stimulus are attended inefficiently. Those features are not bound together and can then be confused with other information. One of the most common types of these errors is conjunction errors. These happen when mismatched features of memories are combined to form a composite memory. This study tests how likely conjunction errors, along with other recognition errors, occur when participants watch videos of people both with and...
Show moreMany errors in recognition are made because various features of a stimulus are attended inefficiently. Those features are not bound together and can then be confused with other information. One of the most common types of these errors is conjunction errors. These happen when mismatched features of memories are combined to form a composite memory. This study tests how likely conjunction errors, along with other recognition errors, occur when participants watch videos of people both with and without unusual facial features performing actions after a week time lag. It was hypothesized that participants would falsely recognize actresses in the conjunction item condition over the other conditions. The likelihood of falsely recognizing a new person increased when presented with a feature, but the conjunction items overall were most often falsely recognized.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3342207
Subject Headings: Face perception, Human face recognition, Facial expression, Physiological aspects, Recollection (Psychology)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Identification of others using biological motion.
Creator: Manuel, Sara., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: The literature regarding biological motion suggests that people may accurately identify and recognize the gender of others using movement cues in the absence of typical identifiers. This study compared identification and gender judgments of traditional point-light stimuli to skeleton stimuli. Controlling for previous experience and execution of actions, the frequency and familiarity of movements was also considered. Watching action clips, participants learned to identify 4 male and 4 female...
Show moreThe literature regarding biological motion suggests that people may accurately identify and recognize the gender of others using movement cues in the absence of typical identifiers. This study compared identification and gender judgments of traditional point-light stimuli to skeleton stimuli. Controlling for previous experience and execution of actions, the frequency and familiarity of movements was also considered. Watching action clips, participants learned to identify 4 male and 4 female actors. Participants then identified the corresponding point-light or skeleton displays. Although results indicate higher than chance performance, no difference was observed between stimuli conditions. Analyses did show better gender recognition for common as well as previously viewed actions. This suggests that visual experience influences extraction and application of biological motion. Thus insufficient practice in relying on movement cues for identification could explain the significant yet poor performance in biological motion point-light research.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3355623
Subject Headings: Pattern recognition systems, Visual perception, Human body, Social aspects, Biometric identification, Psychophysiology
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The Happiness/Anger Superiority Effect: the influence of the gender of perceiver and poser in facial expression recognition.
Creator: Peaco, Sophia., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Two experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of poser and perceiver gender on the Happiness/Anger Superiority effect and the Female Advantage in facial expression recognition. Happy, neutral, and angry facial expressions were presented on male and female faces under Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS). Participants of both genders indicated when the presented faces broke through the suppression. In the second experiment, angry and happy expressions were reduced to 50% intensity. At...
Show moreTwo experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of poser and perceiver gender on the Happiness/Anger Superiority effect and the Female Advantage in facial expression recognition. Happy, neutral, and angry facial expressions were presented on male and female faces under Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS). Participants of both genders indicated when the presented faces broke through the suppression. In the second experiment, angry and happy expressions were reduced to 50% intensity. At full intensity, there was no difference in the reaction time for female neutral and angry faces, but male faces showed a difference in detection between all expressions. Across experiments, male faces were detected later than female faces for all facial expressions. Happiness was generally detected faster than anger, except when on female faces at 50% intensity. No main effect for perceiver gender emerged. It was concluded that happiness is superior to anger in CFS, and that poser gender affects facial expression recognition.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3360964
Subject Headings: Face perception, Human face recognition, Facial expression, Physiological aspects, Biometric identification, Recollection (Psychology), Recognition (Psychology)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: How the Spatial Organization of Objects Affects Perceptual Processing of a Scene.
Creator: Rashford, Stacey, Barenholtz, Elan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: How does spatial organization of objects affect the perceptual processing of a scene? Surprisingly, little research has explored this topic. A few studies have reported that, when simple, homogenous stimuli (e.g., dots), are presented in a regular formation, they are judged to be more numerous than when presented in a random configuration (Ginsburg, 1976; 1978). However, these results may not apply to real-world objects. In the current study, fewer objects were believed to be on organized...
Show moreHow does spatial organization of objects affect the perceptual processing of a scene? Surprisingly, little research has explored this topic. A few studies have reported that, when simple, homogenous stimuli (e.g., dots), are presented in a regular formation, they are judged to be more numerous than when presented in a random configuration (Ginsburg, 1976; 1978). However, these results may not apply to real-world objects. In the current study, fewer objects were believed to be on organized desks than their disorganized equivalents. Objects that are organized may be more likely to become integrated, due to classic Gestalt principles. Consequently, visual search may be more difficult. Such object integration may diminish saliency, making objects less apparent and more difficult to find. This could explain why, in the present study, objects on disorganized desks were found faster.
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Date Issued: 2015
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004537, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004537
Subject Headings: Image analysis, Optical pattern recognition, Pattern recognition systems, Phenomenological psychology, Visual perception
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Infants' perception of synthetic-like multisensory relations.
Creator: Minar, Nicholas J., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Studies have shown that human infants can integrate the multisensory attributes of their world and, thus, have coherent perceptual experiences. Multisensory attributes can either specify non-arbitrary (e.g., amodal stimulus/event properties and typical relations) or arbitrary properties (e.g., visuospatial height and pitch). The goal of the current study was to expand on Walker et al.'s (2010) finding that 4-month-old infants looked longer at rising/falling objects when accompanied by rising...
Show moreStudies have shown that human infants can integrate the multisensory attributes of their world and, thus, have coherent perceptual experiences. Multisensory attributes can either specify non-arbitrary (e.g., amodal stimulus/event properties and typical relations) or arbitrary properties (e.g., visuospatial height and pitch). The goal of the current study was to expand on Walker et al.'s (2010) finding that 4-month-old infants looked longer at rising/falling objects when accompanied by rising/falling pitch than when accompanied by falling/rising pitch. We did so by conducting two experiments. In Experiment 1, our procedure matched Walker et al.'s (2010) single screen presentation while in Experiment 2 we used a multisensory paired-preference procedure. Additionally, we examined infants' responsiveness to these synesthetic-like events at multiple ages throughout development (four, six, and 12 months of age). ... In sum, our findings indicate that the ability to match changing visuospatial height with rising/falling pitch does not emerge until the end of the first year of life and throw into doubt Walker et al.'s (2010) claim that 4-month-old infants perceive audiovisual synesthetic relations in a manner similar to adults.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3362552
Subject Headings: Cognition in children, Individual differences in children, Infant psychology, Infants, Development, Perception in infants, Intersensory effects
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Nurtured beauty: cultivating balance between chance, control, extravagance, and restraint.
Creator: Spivey, Kim., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Visual Arts and Art History
Abstract/Description: Interested in nurturing beauty, I create paintings that reference life processes through layers of struggle, discovery, recovery and generation. Employing a metaphor of the garden, my paintings can be seen as spaces where I determine what grows, stays, is mulched, or weeded out. I seek a balance between coexisting desires of restraint and control and extravagance with a sense of coming unbound. I emphasize the painting field as a whole, while also paying deep attention to the minute, inviting...
Show moreInterested in nurturing beauty, I create paintings that reference life processes through layers of struggle, discovery, recovery and generation. Employing a metaphor of the garden, my paintings can be seen as spaces where I determine what grows, stays, is mulched, or weeded out. I seek a balance between coexisting desires of restraint and control and extravagance with a sense of coming unbound. I emphasize the painting field as a whole, while also paying deep attention to the minute, inviting the viewer to discover complex worlds at different scales within each environment I create. My intimate, domesticated painted environments offer the viewer the possibility to experience the spaces I find beautiful and to add to the conversation of where beauty resides today in contemporary art.
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Date Issued: 2011
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3172945
Subject Headings: Symbolism in literature, Painting, Modern, Themes, motives, Self-perception in art, Mimesis in art, Postmodernism
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Perceptual methods for video coding.
Creator: Adzic, Velibor, Kalva, Hari, Florida Atlantic University, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Abstract/Description: The main goal of video coding algorithms is to achieve high compression efficiency while maintaining quality of the compressed signal at the highest level. Human visual system is the ultimate receiver of compressed signal and final judge of its quality. This dissertation presents work towards optimal video compression algorithm that is based on the characteristics of our visual system. Modeling phenomena such as backward temporal masking and motion masking we developed algorithms that are...
Show moreThe main goal of video coding algorithms is to achieve high compression efficiency while maintaining quality of the compressed signal at the highest level. Human visual system is the ultimate receiver of compressed signal and final judge of its quality. This dissertation presents work towards optimal video compression algorithm that is based on the characteristics of our visual system. Modeling phenomena such as backward temporal masking and motion masking we developed algorithms that are implemented in the state-of- the-art video encoders. Result of using our algorithms is visually lossless compression with improved efficiency, as verified by standard subjective quality and psychophysical tests. Savings in bitrate compared to the High Efficiency Video Coding / H.265 reference implementation are up to 45%.
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Date Issued: 2014
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004074, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004074
Subject Headings: Algorithms, Coding theory, Digital coding -- Data processing, Imaging systems -- Image quality, Perception, Video processing -- Data processing
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Peripheral Object Recognition in Naturalistic Scenes.
Creator: Schlangen, Derrick, Barenholtz, Elan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Most of the human visual field falls in the periphery, and peripheral processing is important for normal visual functioning. Yet, little is known about peripheral object recognition in naturalistic scenes and factors that modulate this ability. We propose that a critical function of scene and object memory is in order to facilitate visual object recognition in the periphery. In the first experiment, participants identified objects in scenes across different levels of familiarity and...
Show moreMost of the human visual field falls in the periphery, and peripheral processing is important for normal visual functioning. Yet, little is known about peripheral object recognition in naturalistic scenes and factors that modulate this ability. We propose that a critical function of scene and object memory is in order to facilitate visual object recognition in the periphery. In the first experiment, participants identified objects in scenes across different levels of familiarity and contextual information within the scene. We found that familiarity with a scene resulted in a significant increase in the distance that objects were recognized. Furthermore, we found that a semantically consistent scene improved the distance that object recognition is possible, supporting the notion that contextual facilitation is possible in the periphery. In the second experiment, the preview duration of a scene was varied in order to examine how a scene representation is built and how memory of that scene and the objects within it contributes to object recognition in the periphery. We found that the closer participants fixated to the object in the preview, the farther on average they recognized that target object in the periphery. However, only a preview duration of the scenes for 5000 ms produced significantly farther peripheral object recognition compared to not previewing the scene. Overall, these experiments introduce a novel research paradigm for object recognition in naturalistic scenes, and demonstrates multiple factors that have systematic effects on peripheral object recognition.
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Date Issued: 2016
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004669, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004669
Subject Headings: Context effects (Psychology), Human information processing, Optical pattern recognition, Pattern recognition systems, Recognition (Psychology), Visual perception
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Visual adaptations in sharks, skates and rays.
Creator: McComb, Dawn Michelle, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Biological Sciences
Abstract/Description: The central importance of vision to an organism is evident in the anatomical and physiological adaptations within the eye that can be correlated to the organism's behavior and ecology. The goal of this study was to perform a functional analysis of adaptations within the elasmobranch visual system. An integrative approach was used to examine morphological and physiological adaptations in several species and link these adaptations to phylogeny, locomotion, habitat, behavior and ecology....
Show moreThe central importance of vision to an organism is evident in the anatomical and physiological adaptations within the eye that can be correlated to the organism's behavior and ecology. The goal of this study was to perform a functional analysis of adaptations within the elasmobranch visual system. An integrative approach was used to examine morphological and physiological adaptations in several species and link these adaptations to phylogeny, locomotion, habitat, behavior and ecology. Functional aspects investigated were eye position, pupil shape, spectral sensitivity, temporal resolution, the extent of the visual field and ultimately the integration of the visual and electrosensory systems. The elasmobranch eye adapts to the light environment of its habitat. Sharks from similar habitats had similar spectral sensitivities such as the bonnethead and blacknose sharks, both maximally sensitive to blue light of 480 nm. The spectral sensitivity of the scalloped hammerhead, which lives in a different environment, was maximally sensitive to green light (530 nm). The temporal characteristics of the eye also matched habitat and lifestyle. Species experiencing variable light conditions exhibited increased critical flicker-fusion frequencies, such as the bonnethead (31 Hz) and scalloped hammerhead (27 Hz), in contrast to deeper or more nocturnal species such as the blacknose shark (18 Hz). Elasmobranch visual fields correlated to each species' lifestyle, habitat and foraging strategy. Expansive monocular views, including a 360° panoramic view in the yellow stingray, were measured in species that rely on vision for vigilance against predators., The Atlantic stingray possessed large binocular overlaps (72°), which provided depth perception useful for tracking prey. By comparison, the frontal binocular overlaps of hammerhead species were larger than sharks with a more conventional head shape.This study quantified the range of the electrosensory system and the exte the visual field of several shark species, confirming both systems overlap around the head facilitating near seamless visual and electrosensory sensory function relevant to prey detection. The findings of this study indicate that ambient environmental light strongly influenced the function of the elasmobranch eye and that the extent of species' visual fields correlated with aspects of their morphology, locomotion and ecology.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/216410
Subject Headings: Visual discrimination, Chondrichthyes, Embryology, Form perception, Adaptation (Biology), Aquatic animals, Physiology
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Visual discrimination by C57BL/6J mice in water maze tasks: does size really matter?.
Creator: Buerger, Eric D., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: When interpreting how an animal "learns" discrimination tasks, strain capabilities must be considered, and it should be shown that they comprehend the task in a manner consistent with the given interpretation. A novel visual-discrimination (VD) task for relative-size-relations was used to examine visual cue use in C57BL/6J mice, which are shown to have biologically good vision and neurologically intact memory for VD tasks. Results suggest C57BL/6J strain may not be fully capable of relative...
Show moreWhen interpreting how an animal "learns" discrimination tasks, strain capabilities must be considered, and it should be shown that they comprehend the task in a manner consistent with the given interpretation. A novel visual-discrimination (VD) task for relative-size-relations was used to examine visual cue use in C57BL/6J mice, which are shown to have biologically good vision and neurologically intact memory for VD tasks. Results suggest C57BL/6J strain may not be fully capable of relative cue-size associations or even object recognition-based on a water maze VD task. This is in contrast to previous studies suggesting this mice strain is quite strong in visual skills and on VD tasks. Additionally, cue size and/or cue-pairings do appear to influence specific directional preferences or stereotyped behaviors as trainings continued, and these strategies shifted during novel probes. Future studies should assess how mice discriminate between objects and test rat's capabilities on this task.
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Date Issued: 2008
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/165670
Subject Headings: Visual discrimination, Form perception, Animal behavior, Simulation methods, Animals, Adaptation, Simulation methods
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The role of location information in identifying degraded objects.
Creator: Schlangen, Derrick, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Across three experiments, we assessed how location and color information contributes to the identification of an object whose image has been degraded, making its identity ambiguous. In Experiment 1, some of the target objects had fixed locations within the scene. We found that subjects used this location information during search and later to identify the blurred target objects. In Experiment 2, we tested whether location and color information can be combined to identify degraded objects, and...
Show moreAcross three experiments, we assessed how location and color information contributes to the identification of an object whose image has been degraded, making its identity ambiguous. In Experiment 1, some of the target objects had fixed locations within the scene. We found that subjects used this location information during search and later to identify the blurred target objects. In Experiment 2, we tested whether location and color information can be combined to identify degraded objects, and results were inconclusive. In Experiment 3, both the location and color of each object was variable but statistically predictive of the object's identity. We found that subjects used both sources of information-color and location - equally when identifying the blurred image of the object. Overall, these findings suggest that location information may be as determining as intrinsic feature information to identify objects when the objects' intrinsic features are degraded.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3361059
Subject Headings: Recognition (Psychology), Context effects (Psychology), Visual perception, Imagery (Psychology), Implicit learning
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The Affective Individual: The Influence of Self-Structure on The Experience of Discrete and Mixed Emotions.
Creator: Blackmon, C. William, Vallacher, Robin R., Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Coherence of self-concept refers to the ability to stabilize on a clear set of views about oneself. This aspect of self-structure is closely linked self-esteem, and similar evidence in emotion research suggests an intricate connection between the self-system and emotion. Evidence suggests that emotions of seemingly opposing valence such as happy and sad can co-occur (i.e., mixed emotion). This study validated a new set of emotional stimuli particularly to elicit mixed emotion and used these...
Show moreCoherence of self-concept refers to the ability to stabilize on a clear set of views about oneself. This aspect of self-structure is closely linked self-esteem, and similar evidence in emotion research suggests an intricate connection between the self-system and emotion. Evidence suggests that emotions of seemingly opposing valence such as happy and sad can co-occur (i.e., mixed emotion). This study validated a new set of emotional stimuli particularly to elicit mixed emotion and used these stimuli with a mouse task that allowed participants to report positive and negative emotions simultaneously. The study examined possible individual differences in discrete emotional response associated with self-esteem as well as a possible connection between selfconcept coherence and a differential ability to harbor mixed emotions; specifically that individuals with high coherence in self-concept would tend to disambiguate their emotional response, but those with low coherence would be more susceptible to cooccurring positive and negative emotion.
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Date Issued: 2017
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004910
Subject Headings: Emotions., Self-perception., Self-esteem., Emotional intelligence., Self-organizing systems.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The Effects of Dichoptic and Isoluminant-Chromatic Stimuli on the Perception of Object and Objectless Motion.
Creator: Seifert, Matthew S., Hong, Sang Wook, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Visual motion can be conveyed by a variety of information sources in the environment, and those types of information may be detected at various levels by different motion-perceiving mechanisms in the visual system. High-level visual information has been demonstrated to have 3rd order, or salience-based properties (Lu & Sperling, 1995). The perceptual system they describe that computes motion from these types of information shares several characteristics with Hock and colleagues' counterchange...
Show moreVisual motion can be conveyed by a variety of information sources in the environment, and those types of information may be detected at various levels by different motion-perceiving mechanisms in the visual system. High-level visual information has been demonstrated to have 3rd order, or salience-based properties (Lu & Sperling, 1995). The perceptual system they describe that computes motion from these types of information shares several characteristics with Hock and colleagues' counterchange detection system, notably flexibility with respect to types of input from which motion can be computed, which comes at the cost of diminished processing speed. The mechanism of counterchange detection is well suited to processing visual features often present in environmental scenes, e.g., objects and surfaces, and may be a mechanism of 3rd order motion. Consistent with reported properties of 3rd order motion, the current experiments tested count erchange-, luminance-, and color-based motion stimuli with 3 objectives: to identify whether the 3 systems framework generalizes beyond the stimulus type with which it was defined, to test whether counterchange shares similarities with the 3rd order system with respect to dichoptic integration, and perception of isoluminant color-based motion, and to test subjectively objectless sources of motion-defining information (spreading luminance and hue) to see if they display properties of the 1st order system derived from sine wave gratings. Results indicate that counterchange-based stimuli displayed predicted properties of dichoptic integration, and perception at isoluminance, but putative 1st order (spreading) stimuli also displayed these properties. This may suggest that object-like surfaces, even when not directly the source of motion information, can contribute to computation of motion. Further, these results highlight the difficulty of generalizing from one theoretical framework to another, and specifically, of psychophysically testing high-level information while isolating contributions from low level information upon which high level visual stimuli are built.
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Date Issued: 2015
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004545, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004545
Subject Headings: Movement, Psychology of, Perceptual motor processes, Physiological optics, Space and time, Visual perception
Format: Document (PDF)

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