Similarity Index Based Approach for Identifying Similar Grotto Statues to Support Virtual Restoration

Grottoes, with caves and statues, are an important part of immovable heritage. Statues in a particular grotto setting are often similar in geometric form and artistic style, and identifying the similarity between these statues can help provide important references for value recognition, condition assessment, repair, and the virtual restoration of statues. Traditionally, such reference information mainly depended on expert empirical judgment, which is highly subjective, lacks quantitative analysis, and cannot provide effective scientific support for the virtual restoration of grotto statues. This paper presents a similarity index based approach for identifying similarities between grotto statues by studying 11 small Buddhist statues carved on the 18th cave in the Yungang Grottoes, located in Datong, China. The similarity index is determined according to the hash values calculated based on the pHash method using the orthophoto images of Buddhist statues to identify similar statues. Similar feature points between the identified statues are then matched using the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) operator to support the repair and reconstruction of damaged statues. The experimental results show that the variation of similarity index values confirms the visual inspection of the statues’ appearance in the orthophotos. The additional analysis of three-dimensional (3D) point clouds also confirms that the similarity index based approach is accurate in the initial screening of similar grotto statues.

Impaired recognition of happy facial expressions in bipolar disorder

BackgroundThe ability to accurately judge facial expressions is important in social interactions. Individuals with bipolar disorder have been found to be impaired in emotion recognition; however, the specifics of the impairment are unclear. This study investigated whether facial emotion recognition difficulties in bipolar disorder reflect general cognitive, or emotion-specific, impairments. Impairment in the recognition of particular emotions and the role of processing speed in facial emotion recognition were also investigated.MethodsClinically stable bipolar patients (n = 17) and healthy controls (n = 50) judged five facial expressions in two presentation types, time-limited and self-paced. An age recognition condition was used as an experimental control.ResultsBipolar patients’ overall facial recognition ability was unimpaired. However, patients’ specific ability to judge happy expressions under time constraints was impaired.ConclusionsFindings suggest a deficit in happy emotion recognition impacted by processing speed. Given the limited sample size, further investigation with a larger patient sample is warranted.

ANTIREALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM: BROUWER’S WEAK COUNTEREXAMPLES

Strictly intuitionistic inferences are employed to demonstrate that three conditions—the existence of Brouwerian weak counterexamples to Test, the recognition condition, and the BHK interpretation of the logical signs—are together inconsistent. Therefore, if the logical signs in mathematical statements governed by the recognition condition are constructive in that they satisfy the clauses of the BHK, then every relevant instance of the classical principle Test is true intuitionistically, and the antirealistic critique of conventional logic, once thought to yield such weak counterexamples, is seen, in this instance, to fail.

Influences of Instructions and Expertise on the Mechanisms Involved During a Working Memory Task

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of instructions and expertise upon cortical mechanisms during a working memory task. Ten professional pianists and ten musically naïve subjects were instructed to retain for a short period of time, sequential finger movements viewed previously with the aim of either replicating them or recognizing them at a later stage. The results showed that in the 20–30 Hz frequency band and in musically naïve subjects, functional connectivity was greater within the occipital, parietal, central, frontal, right, and left temporal areas when the subjects were invited to remember the observed movement in order to replicate it compared to the recognition condition in which they had to recognize it. In professional pianists, incomplete connectivity equivalence was detected between the two conditions. In addition, under the condition for replica, functional connectivity in musically naïve subjects was greater in the central area compared to professional pianists. Explanations related to the: (i) level of expertise, (ii) nature of operations involved during the retention period, and (iii) task demand are discussed.

The Effects of Previously Acquired Knowledge on Memory for Textual Information

The present experiment was designed to examine how the semantic memory store of previously acquired knowledge affects the ability of young and old adults to retain textual information. The participants were presented with a series of biographical passages and were told they concerned either a famous historical character or a fictitious character. In an immediate recognition test, both young and old adults were able to discriminate between test and distractor sentences. However, in the delayed recognition condition, older adults had considerable difficulty in differentiating between target and distractor sentences, particularly in the famous character story condition. It was thought that as the older adults' episodic memory for the story deteriorated, they were unable to discriminate successfully between their store of previously acquired knowledge and the recently learned textual information.

Social Memory of Preschool Girls and Boys

In two experiments, 40 female and 40 male preschoolers attending a daycare center were shown photographs of children attending the center, and were asked either to name each pictured child (recall condition) or to point to the picture of the child as the experimenter said the child's name (recognition condition). In both experiments, girls and boys did not differ significantly in the number of correct identifications on either the recall or recognition tasks. The results do not support Feldstein's (1976) conclusion that preschool girls show better social memory than preschool boys.