Investigating the relationship between background luminance and self-reported valence of auditory stimuli

The present study investigates the effect of background luminance on the self-reported valence ratings of auditory stimuli, as suggested by some earlier work. A secondary aim was to better characterise the effect of auditory valence on pupillary responses, on which the literature is inconsistent. Participants were randomly presented with sounds of different valence categories (negative, neutral, and positive) obtained from the IADS-E database. At the same time, the background luminance of the computer screen (in blue hue) was manipulated across three levels (i.e., low, medium, and high), with pupillometry confirming the expected strong effect of luminance on pupil size. Participants were asked to rate the valence of the presented sound under these different luminance levels. On a behavioural level, we found trend-level evidence for a small effect of background luminance on the self-reported valence rating, with generally more positive ratings as background luminance increases. Turning to valence effects on pupil size, irrespective of background luminance, interestingly, we observed that pupils were smallest in the positive valence and the largest in negative valence condition, with neutral sounds in between. In sum, the present findings therefore provide some evidence concerning the relationship between luminance perception (and hence pupil size) and self-reported valence of auditory stimuli, indicating a possible cross-modal interaction of auditory valence processing with completely task-irrelevant visual background luminance. The present experiment furthermore contributes new data on the relationship between valence and pupil size for auditory stimuli.

Plumage balances camouflage and thermoregulation in Horned Larks (Eremophila alpestris)

Animal coloration serves many biological functions and must therefore balance potentially competing selective pressures. For example, many animals have camouflage, in which coloration matches the visual background against which predators scan for prey. However, different colors reflect different amounts of solar radiation and may therefore have thermoregulatory implications as well. In this study, we examined geographic variation in dorsal patterning, color, and solar reflectance among Horned Larks (Eremophila alpestris) of the western United States. We found associations between dorsal plumage brightness, hue, and patterning relative to the soil conditions where specimens were collected. Specifically, brighter dorsal plumage corresponded to brighter soil, while redder, more saturated hues in dorsal plumage corresponded to redder soils. Furthermore, backs with more high-contrast patterning were more common among females and also associated with soil that had coarser soil fragments, suggesting that lark plumage has been selected to optimize background matching in different environments. We also found that larks exhibited higher solar reflectance in hotter and more arid environments, which lowers the water requirements for homeothermy. Taken together, these findings suggest that natural selection has balanced camouflage and thermoregulation in Horned Larks across a wide variety of soil types and abiotic conditions.

Using Visual Guides to Reduce Virtual Reality Sickness in First-Person Shooter Games: Correlation Analysis

Background The virtual reality (VR) content market is rapidly growing due to an increased supply of VR devices such as head-mounted displays (HMDs), whereas VR sickness (reported to occur while experiencing VR) remains an unsolved problem. The most widely used method of reducing VR sickness is the use of a rest frame that stabilizes the user's viewpoint by providing fixed visual stimuli in VR content (including video). However, the earth-fixed grid and natural independent visual background that are widely used as rest frames cannot maintain VR fidelity, as they reduce the immersion and the presence of the user. A visual guide is a visual element (eg, a crosshair of first-person shooter [FPS]) that induces a user's gaze movement within the VR content while maintaining VR fidelity, whereas there are no studies on the correlation of visual guide with VR sickness. Objective This study aimed to analyze the correlation between VR sickness and crosshair, which is widely used as a visual guide in FPS games. Methods Eight experimental scenarios were designed and evaluated, including having the visual guide on/off, the game controller on/off, and varying the size and position of the visual guide to determine the effect of visual guide on VR sickness. Results The results showed that VR sickness significantly decreased when visual guide was applied in an FPS game. In addition, VR sickness was lower when the visual guide was adjusted to 30% of the aspect ratio and positioned in the head-tracking direction. Conclusions The experimental results of this study indicate that the visual guide can achieve VR sickness reduction while maintaining user presence and immersion in the virtual environment. In other words, the use of a visual guide is expected to solve the existing limitation of distributing various types of content due to VR sickness.

A Multi-Feature Motion Posture Recognition Model Based on Genetic Algorithm

The effect of motion posture recognition hinges on the accurate description of motion postures with effective feature information. This study introduces Wronskian function to improve the denoising ability of visual background extractor (ViBe) algorithm, and thus acquires relatively clear motion targets. Then, a multi-feature fusion motion posture feature model was developed based on genetic algorithm (GA). Specifically, GA was called to optimize and fuse the extracted feature information, while a fitness function was constructed based on the mean variance ratio, and used to select the feature information with high inter-class discriminability. Taking support vector machine (SVM) as the classifier, a multi-class classifier was designed by one-to-one method for the classification and recognition of motion postures. Through experiments, our model was proved highly accurate in motion posture recognition.

To grasp the world at a glance: The role of attention in visual and semantic associative processing

Associative relations among words, concepts and percepts are the core building blocks of high-level cognition. When viewing the world ‘at a glance’, the associative relations between objects in a scene, or between an object and its visual background are extracted rapidly. The extent to which such relational processing requires attentional capacity, however, has been heavily disputed over the years. In the present manuscript I review studies investigating scene-object and object-object associative processing. I then present a series of studies in which I assessed the necessity of spatial attention to various types of visual-semantic relations within a scene. Importantly, in all studies, the spatial and temporal aspects of visual attention were tightly controlled in an attempt to minimize unintentional attention shifts from ‘attended’ to ‘unattended’ regions. Pairs of stimuli - either objects, scenes, or a scene and an object - were briefly presented on each trial, while participants were asked to detect a pre-defined category of stimuli (e.g., an animal, a nonsense shape). Response times (RTs) to the target detection task were registered when visual attention spanned both stimuli in a pair vs. when attention was focused on only one of two stimuli. Findings consistently demonstrated rapid associative processing when stimuli were fully attended, i.e., shorter RTs to associated than unassociated pairs. Focusing attention on a single stimulus only, however, largely impaired this relational processing. The only exception to this result pattern was observed with the target stimuli that were prioritized by task demands: such stimuli continued to affect performance even when positioned at an unattended location, indicating that their relations with the attended items were well processed and analyzed. Our findings suggest that attention plays a critical role in processing visual-associative relations when these involve stimuli that are irrelevant to one's immediate goals.

Building an Open Source Classifier for the Neonatal EEG Background: A Systematic Feature-Based Approach From Expert Scoring to Clinical Visualization

Neonatal brain monitoring in the neonatal intensive care units (NICU) requires a continuous review of the spontaneous cortical activity, i.e., the electroencephalograph (EEG) background activity. This needs development of bedside methods for an automated assessment of the EEG background activity. In this paper, we present development of the key components of a neonatal EEG background classifier, starting from the visual background scoring to classifier design, and finally to possible bedside visualization of the classifier results. A dataset with 13,200 5-minute EEG epochs (8–16 channels) from 27 infants with birth asphyxia was used for classifier training after scoring by two independent experts. We tested three classifier designs based on 98 computational features, and their performance was assessed with respect to scoring system, pre- and post-processing of labels and outputs, choice of channels, and visualization in monitor displays. The optimal solution achieved an overall classification accuracy of 97% with a range across subjects of 81–100%. We identified a set of 23 features that make the classifier highly robust to the choice of channels and missing data due to artefact rejection. Our results showed that an automated bedside classifier of EEG background is achievable, and we publish the full classifier algorithm to allow further clinical replication and validation studies.

IMPLEMENTASI PERANCANGAN IDENTITAS VISUAL DALAM KONSER TALUN DI MUSEUM KOTA BANDUNG

Perkembangan teknologi di era digital ini mempengaruhi berbagai aspek kehidupan masyarakat, termasuk aspek seni dan budaya. Musik yang merupakan salah satu unsur dalam seni dan budaya pun dituntut untuk tetap relevan dengan kondisi aktual. Kemunculan platform video streaming seperti YouTube, berpengaruh terhadap penurunan minat masyarakat untuk menikmati pertunjukan musik secara langsung. Oleh sebab itu, pertunjukan musik membutuhkan identitas visual atau visual branding sebagai kemasan yang dapat membangun citra dan daya tarik dari event tersebut. Konser Talun merupakan sebuah pertunjukan musik yang dikemas dengan konsep kreatif. Identitas visual Konser Talun dirancang dengan mengadaptasi elemen-elemen yang terdapat pada tempat pertunjukan, yaitu Museum Kota Bandung. Selain itu, elemen visualnya juga diadaptasi dari karakteristik bunyi gaung/gema. Perancangan identitas visual Konser Talun berupa logo, warna, pemilihan font dan elemen desain, yang kemudian diterapkan ke dalam media promosi, visual background, tata pencahayaan, instalasi dan merchandise. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif kualitatif dengan instrumen observasi dan wawancara. Pada akhirnya, tulisan ini diharapkan dapat memberikan gambaran tentang proses desain yang komprehensif dan holistik dalam mendesain identitas visual sebuah pertunjukan musik, yang tidak hanya memberikan pengalaman audio visual, namun juga dapat memunculkan imajinasi dan mengikat emosi penonton, melalui interaksi dengan keseluruhan elemen yang terdapat dalam Konser Talun.

Visual polarisation: Examining the interplay of visual cues and media trust on the evaluation of political candidates

Previous research in political communication has shown that visual news coverage can affect news consumers’ evaluations of political candidates. Yet, so far, the effects of subtle (positive/negative) visual background cues on candidate evaluation remain largely unclear. Also, the role of individuals’ media trust has not been explored in this context. That is, trusting individuals may interpret subtle visual cues in different ways compared with mistrusting individuals. Drawing from theory on visual communication, media trust, and the persuasion knowledge model a quota-based online experiment revealed that media trust moderates the relationship between the exposure to negative visual cues and candidate evaluation in the context of a political scandal. Mistrusting individuals showed more positive candidate evaluations, whereas trusting individuals showed more negative evaluations. Thus, visual background cues can have a polarising effect on citizens’ evaluations of political actors and influence the electorate in very different ways. Implications for journalism practice are discussed.