scholarly journals Factors Affecting Auditory Estimates of Virtual Room Size: Effects of Stimulus, Level, and Reverberation

Perception ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 030100662110205
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Kolarik ◽  
Brian C. J. Moore ◽  
Silvia Cirstea ◽  
Elena Aggius-Vella ◽  
Monica Gori ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Size Effects ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Stimulus Level ◽  
Reverberation Time ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Bisection Task ◽  
Size Information ◽  
Room Size ◽  
Size Estimates

When vision is unavailable, auditory level and reverberation cues provide important spatial information regarding the environment, such as the size of a room. We investigated how room-size estimates were affected by stimulus type, level, and reverberation. In Experiment 1, 15 blindfolded participants estimated room size after performing a distance bisection task in virtual rooms that were either anechoic (with level cues only) or reverberant (with level and reverberation cues) with a relatively short reverberation time of T60 = 400 milliseconds. Speech, noise, or clicks were presented at distances between 1.9 and 7.1 m. The reverberant room was judged to be significantly larger than the anechoic room ( p <  .05) for all stimuli. In Experiment 2, only the reverberant room was used and the overall level of all sounds was equalized, so only reverberation cues were available. Ten blindfolded participants took part. Room-size estimates were significantly larger for speech than for clicks or noise. The results show that when level and reverberation cues are present, reverberation increases judged room size. Even relatively weak reverberation cues provide room-size information, which could potentially be used by blind or visually impaired individuals encountering novel rooms.

Using Acoustic Information to Perceive Room Size: Effects of Blindness, Room Reverberation Time, and Stimulus

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p7555 ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (9) ◽  
pp. 985-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J Kolarik ◽  
Shahina Pardhan ◽  
Silvia Cirstea ◽  
Brian C J Moore
Keyword(s):  
Size Effects ◽  
Reverberation Time ◽  
Acoustic Information ◽  
Room Size

Tree Size and Species, Stand Volume, and Tract Size: Effects on Southern Harvesting Costs

1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick W. Cubbage ◽  
W. Dale Greene ◽  
John P. Lyon
Keyword(s):  
Tree Species ◽  
Size Effects ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
Tree Size ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
Production Rates ◽  
Stand Volume ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Harvesting Costs ◽  
Significant Factors

Abstract Timber harvesting production rates and equipment and labor costs were used to estimate average logging costs for a variety of tract volumes and sizes, stand structures, and tree species. Average costs were estimated for conventional logging systems typical in the South. Regression analysiswas used to identify significant factors affecting the costs for each system. Highly mechanized systems were generally cheapest for harvesting southern pines, but were not much cheaper for harvesting hardwoods. Hardwoods were substantially more expensive to harvest, as were tracts of lessthan 250 cords in total volume. South. J. Appl. For. 13(3):145-152.

Factors Affecting Human Time Perception: Do Feelings of Rejection Increase the Rate of Subjective Timing?

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-147
Author(s):  
Aoife McLoughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Peer Rejection ◽  
Neutral Stimulus ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Bisection Task ◽  
Time Distortion ◽  
Expérience Subjective ◽  
Fight Or Flight Response ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Research in the area of human sub-second-to-second timing has uncovered that emotional stimuli can influence our subjective timing, with much research highlighting that stimuli portraying high arousal negative emotions (for example, images of angry faces) cause a subjective lengthening effect, based on a potential fight or flight response. Further research has shown that in order for this effect to occur, the individual needs to be able to emulate the emotion that they have seen, suggesting that responses differ dependant on whether the individual is timing an emotional stimulus, or the individual is emotional while timing a neutral stimulus. Research in the area of social psychology has previously highlighted a link between social exclusion (peer rejection) and time distortion at the minute-to-multiple-minute range, with social exclusion causing a subjective lengthening effect of duration, supposedly due to cognitive deconstruction and emotional numbing. The current study aimed to investigate this further by examining the impact of peer rejection on sub-second-to-second timing. Participants completed a bisection task and were subsequently made to feel either rejected, or accepted by their peers. After this intervention stage, they again completed the bisection task. It was hypothesised that those who were rejected would experience subjective lengthening of duration, whereas those who were accepted would experience subjective shortening of duration. These hypotheses were supported. Implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.

scholarly journals Improving the Audio Game–Playing Performances of People with Visual Impairments through Multimodal Training

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oana Bălan ◽  
Alin Moldoveanu ◽  
Florica Moldoveanu ◽  
Hunor Nagy ◽  
György Wersényi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sound Localization ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Visual Impairments ◽  
Sensory Substitution ◽  
Training Procedure ◽  
3D Audio ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
Haptic Learning

Introduction As the number of people with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) is continuously increasing, rehabilitation and engineering researchers have identified the need to design sensory-substitution devices that would offer assistance and guidance to these people for performing navigational tasks. Auditory and haptic cues have been shown to be an effective approach towards creating a rich spatial representation of the environment, so they are considered for inclusion in the development of assistive tools that would enable people with visual impairments to acquire knowledge of the surrounding space in a way close to the visually based perception of sighted individuals. However, achieving efficiency through a sensory substitution device requires extensive training for visually impaired users to learn how to process the artificial auditory cues and convert them into spatial information. Methods Considering all the potential advantages game-based learning can provide, we propose a new method for training sound localization and virtual navigational skills of visually impaired people in a 3D audio game with hierarchical levels of difficulty. The training procedure is focused on a multimodal (auditory and haptic) learning approach in which the subjects have been asked to listen to 3D sounds while simultaneously perceiving a series of vibrations on a haptic headband that corresponds to the direction of the sound source in space. Results The results we obtained in a sound-localization experiment with 10 visually impaired people showed that the proposed training strategy resulted in significant improvements in auditory performance and navigation skills of the subjects, thus ensuring behavioral gains in the spatial perception of the environment.

Relationship Between Auditory Context and Visual Distance Perception: Effect of Musical Expertise in the Ability to Translate Reverberation Cues Into Room-Size Perception

Perception ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 873-880
Author(s):  
Pablo E. Etchemendy ◽  
Ignacio Spiousas ◽  
Ramiro Vergara
Keyword(s):  
Distance Perception ◽  
Anechoic Chamber ◽  
The Other ◽  
Size Perception ◽  
Size Information ◽  
Musical Expertise ◽  
Room Size ◽  
Visual Distance

In a recently published work by our group [ Scientific Reports, 7, 7189 (2017)], we performed experiments of visual distance perception in two dark rooms with extremely different reverberation times: one anechoic ( T ∼ 0.12 s) and the other reverberant ( T ∼ 4 s). The perceived distance of the targets was systematically greater in the reverberant room when contrasted to the anechoic chamber. Participants also provided auditorily perceived room-size ratings which were greater for the reverberant room. Our hypothesis was that distance estimates are affected by room size, resulting in farther responses for the room perceived larger. Of much importance to the task was the subjects’ ability to infer room size from reverberation. In this article, we report a postanalysis showing that participants having musical expertise were better able to extract and translate reverberation cues into room-size information than nonmusicians. However, the degree to which musical expertise affects visual distance estimates remains unclear.

scholarly journals Enabling visually impaired people to learn three-dimensional tactile graphics with a 3DOF haptic mouse

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariacarla Memeo ◽  
Marco Jacono ◽  
Giulio Sandini ◽  
Luca Brayda
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Vision Loss ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Contact Point ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Scalar Fields ◽  
Sensory Substitution ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Virtual Objects ◽  
Substitution System

Abstract Background In this work, we present a novel sensory substitution system that enables to learn three dimensional digital information via touch when vision is unavailable. The system is based on a mouse-shaped device, designed to jointly perceive, with one finger only, local tactile height and inclination cues of arbitrary scalar fields. The device hosts a tactile actuator with three degrees of freedom: elevation, roll and pitch. The actuator approximates the tactile interaction with a plane tangential to the contact point between the finger and the field. Spatial information can therefore be mentally constructed by integrating local and global tactile cues: the actuator provides local cues, whereas proprioception associated with the mouse motion provides the global cues. Methods The efficacy of the system is measured by a virtual/real object-matching task. Twenty-four gender and age-matched participants (one blind and one blindfolded sighted group) matched a tactile dictionary of virtual objects with their 3D-printed solid version. The exploration of the virtual objects happened in three conditions, i.e., with isolated or combined height and inclination cues. We investigated the performance and the mental cost of approximating virtual objects in these tactile conditions. Results In both groups, elevation and inclination cues were sufficient to recognize the tactile dictionary, but their combination worked at best. The presence of elevation decreased a subjective estimate of mental effort. Interestingly, only visually impaired participants were aware of their performance and were able to predict it. Conclusions The proposed technology could facilitate the learning of science, engineering and mathematics in absence of vision, being also an industrial low-cost solution to make graphical user interfaces accessible for people with vision loss.

scholarly journals RANDOM FOREST AND OBJECTED-BASED CLASSIFICATION FOR FOREST PEST EXTRACTION FROM UAV AERIAL IMAGERY

2016 ◽  
Vol XLI-B1 ◽  
pp. 1093-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Yuan ◽  
Xiangyun Hu
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Aerial Imagery ◽  
Forest Pest ◽  
Distribution Characteristics ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Texture Information ◽  
Spatial Distribution Characteristics ◽  
Simple Rules ◽  
Uav Images ◽  
Spatial Information Technology

Forest pest is one of the most important factors affecting the health of forest. However, since it is difficult to figure out the pest areas and to predict the spreading ways just to partially control and exterminate it has not effective enough so far now. The infected areas by it have continuously spreaded out at present. Thus the introduction of spatial information technology is highly demanded. It is very effective to examine the spatial distribution characteristics that can establish timely proper strategies for control against pests by periodically figuring out the infected situations as soon as possible and by predicting the spreading ways of the infection. Now, with the UAV photography being more and more popular, it has become much cheaper and faster to get UAV images which are very suitable to be used to monitor the health of forest and detect the pest. This paper proposals a new method to effective detect forest pest in UAV aerial imagery. For an image, we segment it to many superpixels at first and then we calculate a 12-dimension statistical texture information for each superpixel which are used to train and classify the data. At last, we refine the classification results by some simple rules. The experiments show that the method is effective for the extraction of forest pest areas in UAV images.

Production Method of Readable Tactile Map With Vocal Guidance Function for the Visually Impaired

2019 ◽  
pp. 316-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kouki Doi ◽  
Takahiro Nishimura
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Production Method ◽  
Tactile Sense ◽  
Public Facilities ◽  
Printing Quality ◽  
Information Accessibility ◽  
Voice Technology ◽  
Tactile Maps ◽  
Original Production

Braille/tactile maps are one of the most traditional tools that guarantee information accessibility for children and people with visual impairment. Silk screen printing method, which is employed as one of the traditional production methods of producing Braille/tactile maps, are becoming more and more popular. However, the printing quality requires further improvements. On the other hand, when using a tactile map, it is not easy for visually impaired persons to acquire spatial information based on only tactile sense. Therefore, a convenient technology that allows the acquisition of tactile map information with voice in addition to tactile sense is desired. Thus, in this chapter, an original production method of tactile maps for public facilities that has high readability and voice technology to guarantee information accessibility is introduced. And a production method for tactile maps of public facilities with vocal guidance function to improve the readability of Braille/tactile map is mentioned based on a trial example.

Design and simulation of acoustics for the home theatre

2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (4) ◽  
pp. 2052-2057
Author(s):  
Liying Zhu ◽  
Junjuan Zhao ◽  
Xianhui Li ◽  
Bin Zhang ◽  
Yueyue Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Normal Modes ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Sound Quality ◽  
Reverberation Time ◽  
Acoustic Design ◽  
Room Size ◽  
Sound Image ◽  
Acoustic Quality ◽  
Natural Resonance Frequency

As a typical acoustics room, the sound quality of home theatre is an important standard to evaluate its design. Qualified acoustics design is the guarantee of good sound quality. The volume of home theatre is generally small, so the room size is similar to the low-frequency wavelength. Then the resonance will occur when the excitation of the sound source frequency acts on the natural resonance frequency of the room. At the same time, the secondary reflection of the room also interferes the direct sound emitted by the speaker, thus destroying the sound image. In order to solve the above problems, this paper took a home theatre as an example, analyzed the normal modes of the room by the theory of wave acoustics, and then made an acoustics design and simulation. The simulation results showed that the reverberation time was up to the relevant standards and the room acoustic quality environment was improved obviously after the acoustic design.

Factors Affecting Traceability of Lines for Tactile Graphics

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (7) ◽  
pp. 264-269
Author(s):  
Billie Louise Bentzen ◽  
Alec F. Peck
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Graphic Displays ◽  
Complex Display ◽  
Tactile Graphics ◽  
Task Behaviors

To facilitate appropriate line choice for tactile graphic displays, 42 visually impaired subjects traced four types of tactile lines in a simple display (without intersections), and in a complex display (having intersections). The lines were single smooth, double smooth (1/4 in. [. 635 cm] spacing), single rough, and double rough. Measures were taken of time to complete the task, “behaviors” other than the continuous tracing of a line, and “restarts,” in which subjects required assistance to complete the task. The results indicate which line types may be more readily traced in displays with and without intersections.

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