December 2009 Archives

Grant Achatz, of Chicago's famed Alinea restaurant, shares some secrets of awaking the emotions with his holiday cooking.

Discuss how they incorporate smells to enhance the diner's expereience

http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/popup.php?name=splendid_table/2009/12/25/splendidtable_20091225_64&starttime=00:14:18&endtime=00:24:10

Hear other stories from the Splendid Table @ http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/

"It's a phantom auditory sensation like phantom limb pain when an arm is cut off, and you feel pain in that missing limb," said Richard Salvi, a leading tinnitus expert and director of the Center For Hearing and Wellness at the University at Buffalo in New York. "Much the same seems to happen when you have tinnitus."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/28/tinnitus.metallica.drummer/index.html

Have you ever seen 300,000 birds move at once? Buzzfeed posted this video of a massive flock of starlings swarming together over an unspecified area in Denmark, forming a dark, shape-shifting cloud. For all the Harry Potter fans out there, it bears a frightening resemblance to a Dementor.

How is it that a bunch of smaller objects can take the form of a larger object? Does the larger object maintain the sense of the original organic onjects that make it up? How do the gestalt principles account for these perceptions?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/08/300000-birds-swarm-over-d_n_350039.html

http://www.art-dept.com/artists/rankin/portfolio/specialprojects/eyescapes/portfolio.html

After you get inspired by this site, try your hand at sidwalk art, by yourself or with a group of friends. What special challenges did you face?

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

What does a lab in psychophysics look like? What is Matlab (see General implementation issues at the bottom of her page)? Can you find other labs on the interent that provide details about their lab?

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.c.a.read/index.php?location=research&sub=labsetups

Also see Snapshots from the Read's lab:

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.c.a.read/index.php?location=research&sub=pictures

This section of my website arose indirectly from my participation in the MP-scientist pairing scheme. I was asking my MP, Dave Anderson, what he was interested in getting out of his visit to my lab, in order to plan a schedule for him. He said he was mainly interested in understanding what a scientist would do all day -- "I mean, not trying to be funny, but for all I know you just sit around waiting for a bright idea." So I thought people might find it interesting if I tried to give an idea of how I actually spend my time. Here are a few examples of things I might do during a day. I wouldn't actually get anything like all of these done in a single day! -- some of them would take several hours just on their own.

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.c.a.read/index.php?location=misc&sub=daylife

You are just going to have to go there and see for your self....

http://www.clublaugh.com/es-items/712.swf

FaceResearch.org allows you to participate in short online psychology experiments looking at the traits people find attractive in faces and voices. Register to participate in experiments if this is your first time at FaceResearch.org or login if you have been here before.

http://www.faceresearch.org/

A decent backyard magic show is often an exercise in deliberate chaos. Cards whipped through the air. Glasses crashing to the ground. Gasps, hand-waving, loud abracadabras. Something's bound to catch fire, too, if the performer is ambitious enough -- or needs cover.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/science/12magic.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

The book ,Why Paint Cats : The Ethics of Feline Aesthetics, said some of the paint jobs cost $15,000 and had to be repeated every 3 months as the cat's hair grows out. Must be nice to have $60,000 a year just to keep your cat painted!!

How does the painting affect our perception / object recognition?

http://www.premierphotographer.com/paintedcats.html

When a person glimpses the face of a famous actor, sniffs a favorite food or hears the voice of a friend, recognition is instant. Within a fraction of a second after the eyes, nose, ears, tongue or skin is stimulated, one knows the object is familiar and whether it is desirable or dangerous. How does such recognition, which psychologists call preattentive perception, happen so accurately and quickly, even when the stimuli are complex and the context in which they arise varies?

http://cogprints.org/43/0/perception2.html

The Joy of Visual Perception: A Web Book is not a book in the traditional sense. Most books are text supplemented by figures. This book is primarily figures and diagrams supplemented by text. As a consequence to use this book on the Web it is important to have graphics capabilities on your browser. 

http://www.yorku.ca/eye/thejoy.htm

On this page:

• How common are taste disorders?
• How does our sense of taste work?
• What are the taste disorders?
• What causes taste disorders?
• How are taste disorders diagnosed?
• Are taste disorders serious?
• Can taste disorders be treated?
• What research is being done?
• Where can I find more information?

Age related taste problems:

http://www.pakmed.net/academic/zent/smell/smell010e.htm

Intro: Welcome to the 'Art and Synesthesia' site of Dr. Hugo Heyrman, Ph.D. in Art Sciences. Are synesthetes people of the future? --to answer this question, and as a consequence of my scientific and artistic passion for Art and Synesthesia, I created this portal on Synesthesia, online since 1995 --to present relevant sources on the art & mind connection, theory, experiments and research on the future of the senses. Homepage of the 'Belgian Synesthesia Association' (BSA).

http://www.doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia/index.htm

The Synaesthesia Research Group is based at the University of Waterloo for the purpose of studying all aspects of a condition known as synaesthesia.

http://www.synaesthesia.uwaterloo.ca/

Links to many research articles

http://www.synaesthesia.uwaterloo.ca/research2.html

Subliminal perception occurs whenever stimuli presented below the threshold or limen for awareness are found to influence thoughts, feelings, or actions. The term subliminal perception was originally used to describe situations in which weak stimuli were perceived without awareness. In recent years, the term has been applied more generally to describe any situation in which unnoticed stimuli are perceived.

http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmerikle/papers/SubliminalPerception.html

On this page:

• How common are smell disorders?
• How does our sense of smell work?
• What are the smell disorders?
• What causes smell disorders?
• How are smell disorders diagnosed?
• Are smell disorders serious?
• Can smell disorders be treated?
• What research is being done?
• What can I do if I think I have a smell disorder?
• Where can I find more information?

All of us depend on adequate sensory integrative functioning in order to carry out daily tasks in work, play and self-maintenance. Disorders in this domain can greatly influence our ability to function, but also can be so subtle that they easily go unrecognized. Particularly in the young child it is easy to attribute behaviors and reactions to other causes ("He's stubborn, lazy, or doesn't want to do it," or "She's spoiled, shy, or headstrong.") or to consider it within the norms of the wide range of personality and developmental characteristics of young children. However, it is important to identify and address sensory integrative dysfunction to enable the child to function at his or her optimum level and to minimize disruption in family life. This article will explain ways of addressing sensory integrative problems within the context of family life and the child's normal activities.

http://www.tsbvi.edu/Outreach/seehear/fall97/sensory.htm

All of us depend on adequate sensory integrative functioning in order to carry out daily tasks in work, play and self-maintenance. Disorders in this domain can greatly influence our ability to function, but also can be so subtle that they easily go unrecognized. Particularly in the young child it is easy to attribute behaviors and reactions to other causes ("He's stubborn, lazy, or doesn't want to do it," or "She's spoiled, shy, or headstrong.") or to consider it within the norms of the wide range of personality and developmental characteristics of young children. However, it is important to identify and address sensory integrative dysfunction to enable the child to function at his or her optimum level and to minimize disruption in family life. This article will explain ways of addressing sensory integrative problems within the context of family life and the child's normal activities.

http://www.tsbvi.edu/Outreach/seehear/fall97/sensory.htm

Mission Statement:
The Sense of Smell Institute's mission is to be a leading global resource relating to the sense of smell and its importance to human psychology, behavior and quality of life. We encourage exploration into the broader multisensory context of smell, including its interplay with taste.

http://www.senseofsmell.org/

This site was created by our very own Dr. Walsh for her Psych 101 class. It is a good model for putting together other Jeopardy games for advanced topics in S&P.

http://www.uni.edu/walsh/jeopardy.html

"You can think of sensory systems as little scientists

that generate hypotheses about the world,"

says Anthony Movshon, an HHMI investigator at

New York University. Where did that sound come

from? What color is this, really? The brain makes

an educated guess, based on the information at

hand and on some simple assumptions.

The document is 63 pages of great writing and brilliant illustrations.

http://www.hhmi.org/senses/senses.pdf

Excerpt: Before I begin my discussion, I would like to explain what I mean by the term "mobility." We customarily talk about the two terms "orientation" and "mobility" as if they were separate and independent activities. If this dichotomy is taken seriously, mobility becomes the ability to move through space safely, without the requirement of knowing where you are, where you want to go, or how to get there. Being able to move through space with the assurance that your next step will not be your last step is undoubtedly comforting, but if this is all we have in mind when we consider mobility, then mobility is not a very interesting activity. We would do better to say that orientation is an essential component of meaningful mobility. I certainly do not mean to suggest that the ability to move safely through space is not an important component of mobility, but when we add orientation as an essential component, mobility becomes a useful ability. Accordingly, when I use the term "mobility," I mean to indicate an activity that is impossible without orientation.

http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/foulke.htm

Biomotion Lab

We are working on several aspects of visual perception and cognition. Our major interest is focussed on questions concerning the biology and psychology of social recognition. That is:

• . detection of animate agents
• . conspecific recognition
• . gender recognition
• . individual recognition
• . recognition of an agent's actions
• . recognition of emotions, personality traits and intentionality
• . face recognition

http://www.biomotionlab.ca/index.php

Interactive Demonstration -

http://www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalker.html

This is an online text book of sorts by Dr. Krantz. The book incorporates the various tutorials and demonstrations that Dr. Krantz has put together for sensation and perception.

http://psych.hanover.edu/classes/sensation/index.html

A collection of tutorials and demonstrations related to perception by Dr. Krantz on areas such as visual information in art, size constancy, Foutier analysis, receptive fields, aftereffects, Gestalt laws of perceptual organization, motion and depth. 

http://psych.hanover.edu/Krantz/sen_tut.html

A comprehensive study of road safety (Treat et al., 1977) found that human error was the sole cause in 57% of all accidents and was a contributing factor in over 90%. In contrast, only 2.4% were due solely to mechanical fault and only 4.7% were caused only by environmental factors. Other studies have reported similar results.

http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/roadaccidents.html

Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people's names with a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor. The word synesthesia comes from two Greek words, syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means "joined perception."

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html

Also see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Go to the site and then look at the two long lines.

Which one is longer? Try moving the two lines on top of each other. Try swapping the end pieces around.

http://www.questacon.edu.au/illusions/muller-lyer_illusion.html

University Park, Pa. -- For 8 percent of men, color blindness is not just a fashion inconvenience, but an impairment that makes reading maps and other visual data difficult if not impossible. Now, a Penn State geographer has developed color schemes that allow most color-blind people to interpret the images.

http://www.psu.edu/ur/2000/colorblindness.html

This relates to my previous post. A little more on the topic of the stop motion animation techniques. This is useful if you want to give stop motion a try. What would you need to know about the perception of biological motion?

Here is a clip on how to set up an animation studio:. If you were to set up a studio, what considerations would you make knowing what you know about sensation and perception?

I found a site where this guy builds miniature sets. But they only showed the sets with nothing to compare them to so there was no way to scale them and you couldn't fully appreciate the work. So I found a youtube with some guy making sets out of cardboard. They are miniature, but not realistic. There are a bit too many ads as well. If you find a better video let me know and I'll replace this one.

Watch the video and discuss what is going on and how it relates to what we are studying. If you want, go ahead and build a miniature set of your own.

Have a look at this site and gain a better appreciation of eyes. Consider doing your own dissection. Contact your local butcher and see if they have any extras laying around.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/index.html

A collection of interactive demonstrations. Go through and enjoy the site. Which exhibits did you like the best? Which exhibits relate most to what we have been currently studying in the course?

http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/f_exhibits.html

The Dutch physiologist, Franciscus Cornelis Donders, was the first person to conceive of a way to measure "thinking time", and did so in studies performed in the middle part of the 1860's.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/reaction/index.html

We'll start with a simple brain (or a simple computer) which consists of four simple elements connected as shown to the left. The bottom two ovals we'll call "input" units and the filled circle we'll call an "output" unit. They are actually all we really need (for present purposes), but things will work a little better if we have a fourth "bias" element, the circle with the B in it.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity/perceptron/learning.html

Most people assume that what you see is pretty much what your eye sees and reports to your brain. In fact, your brain adds very substantially to the report it gets from your eye, so that a lot of what you see is actually "made up" by the brain

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/latinhib.html

Most people (even many who work on the brain) assume that what you see is pretty much what your eye sees and reports to your brain. In fact, your brain adds very substantially to the report it gets from your eye, so that a lot of what you see is actually "made up" by the brain.

Close your left eye and stare at the cross mark in the diagram with your right eye. Off to the right you should be able to see the spot. Don't LOOK at it; just notice that it is there off to the right (if it's not, move farther away from the computer screen; you should be able to see the dot if you're a couple of feet away). Now slowly move toward the computer screen. Keep looking at the cross mark while you move. At a particular distance (probably a foot or so), the spot will disappear (it will reappear again if you move even closer). The spot disappears because it falls on the optic nerve head, the hole in the photoreceptor sheet.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html

What is the difference between the two images shown below? What does this tell us about the perception of depth?

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/ambigfig/rock

What does this tell us about how the visual system attempts to resolve ambiguity? What are the gestalt principles? Which of these principles would describe what is going on here? Is this an example of a bi-stable illusion?

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/ambigfig/AmbigCheeta!.jpeg

Adjust the probability of noise for the figure and for the ground. How much noise can you produce before you can no longer see the picture/word? What does this tell us about the visual system? What is noise? What are other sources of noise in the visual system?

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/chance

Interactive Demonstration:

The interactive display below can be used to acquire the ability to see Hofstadter's Road Sign in at least four different ways. Controls to the left allow one to bias one's perception by adding apparent barriers and arrows. Controls to the right allow one to vary the color of the dots at various locations in ways that may help one see different patterns.

 http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/hofstadter/applet

Abstract

On-line book edited by Dr. Cook.

Table of contents:

You will hve to go about half of the way down this page to find the eye section. This is a lay description of how something like an eye can evolve.

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/evolution.html

How does this work? What if you used two ballons for strings? Does the sound vary with different amounts of air in the ballon (or with different ballons)? Why?

This site has hundreds of images of textures. Why are textures so important to the visual system?

http://textures.forrest.cz/

How well does this represent color space? What is the science behind matching color with emotions? How do the emotions represented in the corresponding faces correspond to the emotions and colors?

http://www.do2learn.com/organizationtools/EmotionsColorWheel/index.htm

http://www.findsounds.com/types.html

How small is small?

The snowman was made from two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism. The eyes and smile were milled using a focused ion beam, and the nose, which is under 1 [micrometer] wide (or 0.001 mm), is ion beam deposited platinum.

Since black roof tiles absorb heat and white ones reflect it, we should all just plain re-do our roofs biannually to save energy as the seasons change.

http://gizmodo.com/5416478/thermally+activated-roof-tiles-change-color-to-conserve-energy

Q: How does this relate to color perception?