I chose this link for a variety of reasons, two very "assignment appropriate" and one other personal reason.
Reason #1
I think it's unbelievable the process our body goes through to relay messages from the reception of a stimulus via one of our senses, the route it takes to the brain, and then the brain sending out signals to the body to make your body physiologically respond to the stimulus. Watching the video makes me think of occurrences when an individual responds to a situation "incorrectly." For example, I would be more interested in knowing what's happening when someone laughs at something that isn't really "funny." Is it a neuron misfiring, or is it something in the environment that causes it?
Reason #2
Looking at this video from the perspective of the viewer, it does an unbelievable job keeping the attention of the viewers with the various animations and sound effects. It's very appealing and relatively easy to listen to while maintaining its ability to be informative as well as concise.
Reason #3
I just think that computer graphics animation is cool no matter how you look at it.
http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo.htm
For this divergent activity, I chose to examine stereograms. This ties into the chapter because your mind constructs the lines to see the image, much like the examples of the triangles in the reader. When I was younger, I remember having books filled with these images that the reader must stare at for minutes before the 3-D image finally pops out. I always struggled with these activities, and had to have the object traced for me before I could see it. To get them to work, I had to place the picture directly in front of my nose and slowly pull the picture away. I never understood why this worked, until I did more research on the topic today.
Stereograms are based on your brain’s perception of depth. Stereograms work when your eyes slowly drift out of focus after staring at an image for a long time. Your eyes begin to focus on the background pattern, and this is when the object seems to appear to you in 3-D form. Color plays an important role in stereograms because they provide visual cues for your brain. Lighter colored objects appear closer, while darker colored images appear further away.
http://www.inf.ufsc.br/~otuyama/eng/stereogram/basic/index.html
An interesting point about stereograms that relates to class is how the reader views them. This second website gives a good demonstration of where your eyes are focusing when viewing the stereogram to produce the shape. If the image pops out and appears to be coming off the page, the reader is viewing the image with their eyes parallel. If the image appears to cave into the page, or convergent, the reader is viewing the image with their eyes crossed. Depth perception is done automatically by your brain when viewing the world. It happens quickly to avoid being attacked, or harmed by objects coming at you. Stereograms work however by tricking the brain into misperceiving the depth of the pattern, so it appears to be 3-D when in fact is 2-D.
The website I found explains how 3D glasses work and the different types of glasses that are used. I wanted to look at how they worked because we see basically everything in 3D; even when watching movies or television. The screens are obviously flat but the objects that we see on the screen are 3D objects. Then in 1922 the first 3D movie was made. Our technology got even more advanced and we could actually see these objects as 3D in front of us; like we're actually there!
This website mentions how our eye sight is binocular and that our eyes basically see the same thing; but a little different. Just like how Professor Maclin explained how our eyes see color, they mostly overlap. In 3D movies, they use two different projectors with differernt polarization. The glasses make it so one eye can only see one polarization and the other eye can only see the other polarization. Giving off the 3D effect.
In chapter 2 of our reader it talks about 3D objects and how our eyes take in the image and our brain analyzes it into a 3D object. So our eyes already see everything as 3D and then we put these glasses over our eyes that turns the screen images into 3D. It's almost like it's extra 3D! If that was possible.
For this weeks divergence assignment I looked into the Kanizsa Triangle a bit more. The image is three pac-man looking circles all facing inward that make the illusion of a triangle in the center of them. There really isn’t a triangle there. If you cover the circles the triangle disappears to your eye. When you uncover them the triangle reappears because you reconstruct it.
In the reader it explains how you can copy the image into a computer and the scanner doesn’t pick up the triangle image but we can still see it. The triangle actually looks a brighter white and stands out to the viewer but the computer or scanner only sees the three pac-man circles. I didn’t find the Kanizsa triangle in the text book but I did find an interactive web site.
On the web site you can change the colors, shapes, add extra images and even add edges to the triangle to see it clearer. In the book the image was small and playing with the colors ect you can really see how and what you are seeing.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/brain-damage-art.htm
During class this week we talked a little about the functions of the right hemisphere vs the left hemisphere. So for this weeks web divergence, I decided to look a little more into it.
The Website that I took this article from it talked about a lady who underwent surgery to remove a tumor in her brain she began to experience certain changes in her abilities. Prior to the surgery she had always been a left brain kind of person. She focused her attention on science and medicine. After the surgery her right brain began to take over and since then she has experienced more artistic adventures. She said that she had to give up her medical work and focused more on her artistic abilities. She did mention that before the surgery she could barely draw a stick figure, but can now spend hours working on dramatic pieces.
The Sensation and Perception book speaks about development of the newborn mind. In this case I would relate to the woman who underwent the surgery as having a new mind(she has now been forced to rely on the other hemisphere, and therefore has to develop it). The book speaks about developing perception at a young age and all that goes into it. As you grow older your mind begins to remember things that they have preiously seen. This gets placed into a catergory in the brain meant for safe-keeping so to speak. After Sandy began to develop skills as an artists she remembers them when moving onto something else. This combines with other skills she is learning through her experiences and helps her overall with her work. Sandy begins to recognize colors, brightness, patterns, techniques, etc.
After reading through the provided materials I made sense out of what was happenin, but it also raises more questions. After Sandy's surgery would she have to start from scratch (so to speak) with the development of her right brain? Or would her previous knowledge help her in the development of the right brain? And could Sandy no longer take part in her medical studies because she could not make sense out of what she had already accomplished? Or because she just lost all interest in it? But this article was very enlightening and shows that nothing is for certain in life.
Michael May lost his sight to a chemical explosion when he was 31/2 years old. He eventually lost his left eye and remained blind in his right until the surgery in 2000.
Three years after surgery restored sight to May's right eye, researchers say May's case shows how vision is more than just eye function. Blindness has long-term effects on how the brain processes information and constructs one's view of the world.
Three-dimensional perception and the ability to recognize complex objects such as the faces of family and friends remain severely impaired. He strains to tell the difference between a man and a woman. He describes a cube as a square with extra lines.
Sight restored in less than a month using stem cell contact lenses.
Employing three patients who were blind in one eye, the researchers obtained stem cells from their healthy eyes and cultured them in extended wear contact lenses for ten days. The surfaces of the patients’ corneas were cleaned and the contact lenses inserted. Within 10 to 14 days the stem cells began to recolonize and repair the cornea.
Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third, who could previously read the top few rows of the chart, is now able to pass the vision test for a driver’s license. encouraging. The simplicity and low cost of the technique also means that it could be carried out in poorer countries.
I saw this article on my MSN homepage and it made me think of sensation and perception. This website includes images of popular celebrities who have been a part of some sort of airbrushing scandal. Some of these pictures are absolutely ridiculous. There is a picture of Kate Winslet clearly doesn't look anything like her. There is also a picture of a Ralph Lauren model that they photocopied so little that the dimensions would have to be impossible, and you later find out she was fired by Ralph Lauren for being too heavy. She weighed 120 pounds. When I really start to look at all of these celebrities critically it is obvious that they aren't that skinny, but what makes us believe they are?
It reminded me of “The Devil’s Triangle” from the reader. The devils triangle is impossible to make, yet we still identify it as a triangle, and at first don’t recognize that this is an impossible figure. However, upon closer examination you can see that these dimensions aren’t reasonable. This goes along with how skinny they make celebrities, when you first look at them they look normal and you can recognize them as normal, but upon closer examination you can see clearly that the dimensions are not reasonable at all. This is what the reader refers to as phenomenal sense.
This link discusses a new technology recently unveiled by researchers to assist cardiologists during surgery. This new invention will help cardiologists to view a patient’s coronary arteries during surgery to better treat heart disease and similar disorders. Although this new technology is still in its early stages of testing, it is proving to have many promising contributions in the medical field. With this new form a medical imagery doctors will be able to better estimate the length, branching outlines and angles of heart arteries, while including blockages. In addition to benefitting the doctors, this new software system will decrease the need for several other images which means less exposure to radiation for the patients, and furthermore, it will lessen the time needed by doctors to examine the images compared to other standard 2-D systems.
The reader explains how people are able to visually construct 3-D images using the basic rules for visual intelligence; however, this link explains the benefits of what 3-D imagery is able to contribute to the real world. Similarly, the reader touches on the benefits that visual intelligence has on technology by mentioning the Mars Pathfinder. The Mars Pathfinder uses technology based vision in order to allow people to view images that may have otherwise been impossible. If it wasn’t for understanding visual intelligence, scientists may still be questioning what lies on Mars, likewise, this new 3-D system has the power to allow eyes on the inside of the body.
1. I viewing this site, It seems like its basically elaborating on how humans see in 2 dimensions and 3 dimensions. It spends sometime time on telling you what 3D really is. Also it tell you how to view 3deminsional objects. Some other things this site talks about is Vision therapy and vision health. I found the most interesting part about this site to be the information about 3Deminsional viewing.
2. I think one of the main reasons why I picked this site was because it did a great job interacting with the reader as far as talking about the rules and showing how 3 dimensional objects should be viewed. Another reason why I chose this was because its another form of optical illusion and this site explains how not to be fooled by construction.
3. The website was more of an informative site that had a great deal of facts and techniques. It talked about the parallel viewing method by saying the lines of sight of your eyes move outward toward parallel and meet in the distance at a point well behind and beyond the image. That's why it's called parallel viewing. It also stated that the various muscles in your eye that have direct control of your lens use relaxation and they strengthen. Another method this site used was the Cross eyed method. This is when you aim your eyes so that the lines of sight of your eyes cross in front of the image. One difference between these two methods were that the muscles in your eye that control lens do different things such as this method contracts strongly and shortens and the parallel method uses relaxation and strengthens.
4. The reader also went in to some specific details on how you construct 3 dimensional objects. It also displayed a verity of rules to go by when you are interrupting 3D. The rule of generic looks at the V which helps you have a better construction of the vertex. I think this would go with the cross eye method because you have to intersect the lines when you construct a V.
5. The textbook went in to some specific details with the different figures and terms. I thought that did a better job than the reader did because it shows you how the 3D vision works with the different side of your brain. Almost like that picture you showed in class. The website showed a picture that was similar as well. Some key terms I thought were important in looking at 3d Was Spatial Frequency which refers to the number of times a pattern repeats itself in a given space. The text also talks in great detail about the Lateral Gesticulate Nucleus which is a part in the thalamus that receives input form the retinal ganglion cells. One term I think is directly related towards 3d is Filter because its a neuron that allows you to pass through some frequencies and block out others.
6. In viewing these 3 sources, I thought they all had a distinctive way of explaining 3Dementional vision. This caused me to understand it more thoroughly because they all came from different perspectives. I thought the website laid the information out there a little bit easier to understand than the textbook because the textbook had a lot of terms that were harder to interpret.
Last week we all got to have a very up close encounter with the structures of the eye, so this week I thought I would look into the functions of those structures, and answer a few of my own curiosities. The rods and cones in our eyes do so much for visual information processing, I really wanted to look more into color perceptions. I have always wondered what exactly the world looks like to a color blind person. Being able to see color myself I was unsure if there was just a lack of color as if the world is all in gray scale. This is actually very rare to have no color sensation and is know as monochromacy. I thought too that possibly other colors filled in the spaces for those that couldn't be processed correctly. That's not really it either. It's much like the conundrum you find yourself in when you ask what a blind person sees.... they just don't, it's not black or dark or nothingness, it's really a wild idea to wrap your head around. But being able to see, and not really understanding what life without vision would be like, we can't really comprehend not having the sense of vision at all. The same goes with colorblindness, many people who are colorblind may not realize they are because there never has been that color present in their world, there is nothing missing until a vision test tells them there is.
This isn't the most interactive of web sites, but there are quite a few examples of the different types of colorblindness and how various scenes would look to those who are colorblind. Enjoy!
As I was searching the web for something to post this week I had one of those sudden shivers down my spine. First I brushed it off as a small annoyance and then I started thinking... that is one of my least favorite sensations..wait sensation.... I should find out what causes that! So I did I just asked google and I found out that it is part of a fight or flight response. It is caused by a feeling of fear or anxiety that produces adrenaline into the hypothalamus and there it is turned into a physical respenonse known as "the chills" "raising your hackles" or "the goosebumps". It affects your erector pilli which are what we call "goosebumps" but are actually tiny muscle below the skin. So next time you get the chills quite stop and think about what is going on and if you have somehow reacted a fight or flight response!
In class, we briefly talked about robot vacuum cleaners. It seems almost normal that more and more robots are being developed but that fact made me wonder how robots actually work.
The website I found does a pretty good job at explaining how robots work. Robots typically only are made to only have one sense: vision. What robots have can be compared to human vision but is not exactly the same. They usually have a digital camera, (eyes for humans), and a computer (the brain for humans). The camera takes an image and then sends it to the computer to be analyzed. The human visual system, as we know, is much more complex. It is not enough to just see objects and know what they are. We also have to make distinguishing decisions about the objects. For example, we know that a room looks different in the dark than in the light but how would a robot know this?
Computers are not exactly like the human brain in that they must be programmed. The human brain comes loaded with innate information for a person. A computer must be told exact information before it "knows" anything. Robots do not think but rather follow instructions. This means that a robot must be programmed to recognize something like light differences so that it will know that objects in a certain room are the same whether the light is bright or dim.
I feel like I really couldn't find what I was looking for concerning robot vision but that maybe because I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping would be explained. This website was the easiest to understand and the most concise. I think I was hoping for a more exciting explanation for robot vision that cameras and computers even though that is a very obvious explanation as I think about it now. I might be looking for something more detailed about how robot vision works but I really had a tough time finding much to satisfy my curiosity.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/robot.htm
This site is also really informative but I felt like it was harder to find things to relate to class and my main point of interest which is robot vision. It's definitely worth looking at if you're interested though.
Also, it is very entertaining to watch robots in action.
I searched "robot vision" on YouTube and there are so many awesome videos. You guys should check some of them out!
After discussing split brain surgeries in class, I decided to do a little more research on them. On this website, it tells more about some of the more unusual behaviors that individuals might exhibit if their corpus callosum was cut, separating the right and left hemispheres.
One case that I thought was particularly interesting on this website was about a man who had had the procedure done, and after getting into an argument with his wife started hitting her with his left hand and protecting her with his right hand. A possible explanation for this may be that, according to http://www.solhaam.org/articles/humind.html, the right hemisphere which would control the left side of the body is more driven by the man's emotions at the time, which were upset. The left side of the brain, controlling his right hand were more logical, and were pobably taking into account the consequences of this action and defending her against his own attacks.
Another similar behavior of someone who had a split brain surgery was a man who was trying to put on a pair of pants with one hand and was trying to take them off with the other. After thinking about this one, I figured maybe he just really hates wearing pants which would be driven by his emotions and was trying to take them off, while the right side of his brain was telling him to put them on because that is what is socially acceptable in our society.
I thought this website was pretty interesting and emphasized what we already know about the importance of the corpus callosum when it comes to the right and left hemispheres communicating with each other as well as some of the functions of each half of the brain. It's hard to imagine being one of the people who have had this procedure done and not being able to do what we think are very simple tasks that feel like they don't take any thought or effort
As I was driving home from night class tonight, I got to thinking about how our eyes adjust to the dark. As I was contemplating this, It made me interested and excited to research it further. I find it fascinating how our vision has so many dimensions and range. I've always taken advantage of the simple things such as seeing and this class has really made me re-think how complicated this process is, and it's also made me eager to learn more about the process of vision. The website that I found goes into great detail of explaining this process. To summarize a little of what the website stated: The pupil contracts and expands depending on the amount of light, and can physically block the amount of light entering the eye in bright situations. The website goes into more detail and here's the link http://health.howstuffworks.com/eyes-adjust-darkness.htm. There was also a fun fact that was listed on the website that stated that The retinal used int he eye is derived from vitamin A. If a person's diet is low in vitamin A, there is not enough retinal in the rods and therefore; not enough rhodospin. People who lack vitamin A often suffer from night blindness. This fact was very interesting to me because I suffer from farely severe night blindness and now I know that it could because I don't have enough vitamin A in my diet, very interesting!.
The website that I found was http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,13765,00.asp. This website caught my eye because it focused on something that I gained some experience with my freshman year while I was an art student. I was in a drawing class and we had to create images using pastels. We had to take two completely different colors, and try to make them appear the same, and also take two of the same exact color and try to make them completely different, just by using different colored backgrounds. This was actually a tricky task to do, using pastels, but in the end it turned out to be very successful and interesting.
This website was focused on just that. It focused on how colors may appear differently under different circumstances. Colors may appear a different color than they actually are depending on other colors that surround it. I learned that simultaneous contrast can affect details, color, and shades that you may see. The website gives different examples where colors seem as though they are different shades, when in fact they are the same, and also colors that are different that actually seem the same color.
I thought that this was an interesting website because it made me think of how designers and advertisements can use different pairings of colors to there advantage to help them become successdul. Also, it is just interesting seeing how your eyes can manipulate colors, depending on their surroundings.
Something I thought was interesting since you brought it up in class last week was how people are always calculating distance. How people are able to get into a line going to class and just walk at the speed of people all around them. Last week I had one of those moments were I tried to step around a person but we each kept on steping the same way and it took like 2 or 3 tries to finally get arond that person. After that I really started to think about the ways we try to move. The website I found talked a lot about the ways we send and recieve all of our different messages. How we see something and its sent back through our LGN which is sent to our spinal cord which helps move our legs and arms.
The website I found also talked about people with moving disabilities. The major ones that the covered were parkinsons and alzhiemers while another one they talked about was alcoholism. Saying that it deterioate the cerrebellum which will lead to trouble walking if you drin enough for a long enough time.
It also talks about different ways that you can keep your body in good shape and have a healthy lifestyle.
I thought taht this was all realative to our class because of how the first thing after I thought of after doing a little "dance" with a complete stranger was about how we both complelty misjudged the way the other person would move.
The website was: http://www.dana.org/news/brainhealth/detail.aspx?id=10070
When we met in groups with our mind maps to discuss chapter two we were able to cover many of the concepts in the chapter with clarity. However; there was some confusion on the subject of linear perspective. We ran out of time to explore the meaning of the way an image is projected as explained on page 37 of our text.
In attempting to understand this concept I explored the the internet to attempt a narration of my own comprehension for this posting. I found two sites that illustrate and discuss the concept in greater depth than our text. The first one is from an artists perspective, and the second discusses the historical importance of the artists contribution to modern science in enabling technological advance that would not otherwise be possible without the Renaissance discovery of linear perspective.
In this first link, scroll down to the image of a cube projected onto the plane. As you can see, there are multiple lines coming from the edges of the cube and project forward to plan where we are observing the cube. The shape summarizes how our eyes might see the cube - as if we observe the boundary of the cube in two dimensions. However, we add depth and perspective so that we see the cube in 3-D. Pretty amazing, really!
This second link shows how much we evolved as humans when we learned to draw in 3-D using linear perspective. The author argues that this finding led to the rise of modern science. The artists attempt to more accurately represent our physical reality led to an evolution of human awareness of that reality, including the "original science of optics".
Fascinating stuff if you're in the mood for a little historical understanding of the type of painting used in our reader to convey this aspect of our visual intelligence!
One of the things that have really impacted me is the case of Mr. S who was diagnosed with “visual form agnosia”. The idea that someone is unable to see objects or recognize a family member is a little bit scary. People suffering from visual agnosia take in through their eyes the same visual information that we do, but they perceive only parts of details not the whole object because they have lost the normal ability to assemble edges, colors, and motions into visual objects. This means that they can’t construct objects through their visual system like we do. Nevertheless, they haven’t lost the concept of object. They also haven’t lost their ability to perceive objects from other modalities the same way than when we close our eyes and touch an object, we create a tactile object. They can recognize an object by touch or a person by the sound of their voice just like Mr. S did to recognize his family members.
The textbook also has the same examples and explains that this impairment can be a result of brain lesions, brain tumors, or brain injury caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.
This website has a visual simulation of what visual agnosiac see which I thought was very weird and interesting. It is almost like seeing an abstract painting.
I was watching SportsCenter today and wondered what makes elite athletes hand eye coordination better than those of the average person.
When I thought about this more I thought of Larry Fitzgerald and his crazy hands. Larry Fitzgerald made a huge splash in the 08-09 season, especially in Superbowl 43. It seemed like when Curt Warner threw the ball up, Larry would go catch it. Most scouting experts who scouted Larry in the combine graded him as an average athlete. He ran at 4.6 in the 40 meter dash, a mediocre time for his position. He also did not have the biggest leaping ability at his position. Can we say he has soft hands, or great body control? Maybe, but how did he gather in 1400+ receiving yards last season?
Researchers have looked at this question and drew some pretty interesting conclusions. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123207803343289089.html
A researcher by the name of Joan Vickers has studied the movements of elite hockey goalies, baseball, and football players. She has strongly concluded that they posses what she calls a "quiet eye". This meaning that the elite athlete can identify the target object and fix their gaze on it longer than the average person at a farther distance. This extreme concentration helps them catch a ball, block a puck, or hit a home run.
It is also interesting to note that Larry Fitzgerald's grandfather was an optometrist. He would put Larry through complicated hand-eye coordination drills. One for instance was hitting a painted baseball with a rolling pin that had corresponding colors on it. Larry thinks drills like this helped him on and off the field.
Vickers also assumes that with this "quiet eye", when a ball is thrown in the air, Larry turns on his mini-cpu. The brain is such an advanced micro processor, when a ball is thrown many chemical interactions are sent through the retina, down the eye, in the optic nerve to the brain, and back again. As a teenager, Larry, got a job as the ball boy for the Vikings. For six summers Larry has seen millions of passes and has been catching balls for decades. This possibly helps him react faster, and make these calculations quicker so he knows where to put his hands to catch any pass.
This year, Larry, finished the season with 1100 yards receiving and 13 touchdowns, his fifth 1000 yard receiving season in a row.
As I was driving back to Cedar Falls one weekend it began to get dark out and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. How our eyes adjust to the light and darkness is very interesting and I wanted to find out more about it. I found a website that explained how amazing it is that our eyes have a range that lets us see bright sunlight and total darkness. There are three different parts that make up the range that our eyes have. These parts are: The pupil, which expands and contracts depending on the amount of light. It can also block the amount of light that enters the eye. Rods and cones also play a big part. Rod cells work best in low light and perceive white and black images. Cones work best in dark light and perceive bright light. The third factor is Rhodopsin, which is a chemical that is found in the rod cells. Rhodipsin is the main reason why we can see when it is dark out. This chemical helps the rods absorb photons and perceive light. There is also an interesting video about the bionic eye! http://health.howstuffworks.com/eyes-adjust-darkness.htm
http://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_drive_3d_data_with_a_gesture.html
I found a talk similar to this a few years ago and am very happy to see the topic pop up again. Basically this talk is about a new type of computer interface that allows you to use pantomime to interact with the computer software instead of the standard point-click interface (is it me or does the guy look strangely like Dr. MacLin? Maybe MacLin if he’d been a computer nerd instead?). The Nintendo Wii has begun to implement technology like this and this programmer believes that features like this will be standard in 5 years. If it looks familiar the same guy who made this interface helped design the program that Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report.
What originally drew me to this type of technology (the original talk was on multiple-point touch screen technology, where you can use two fingers to zoom in and out, etc.) is that an extra benefit to technologies such as this is that they are intuitive. They find that when they make the computer software more life-like, naturally, it just seems obvious what you need to do in order to use the device. I foresee a day when people are able to pick up a completely new device, not even be told what it is, and they will use it as though they’ve been doing so for years, because, in a manner of speaking, they have. With the URP (Urban Planning) program they mention that even children can use the program knowing nothing about urban planning or the software.
At one point he makes reference to our own “wet-ware” and that spacializing data helps us understand it easier; I assume he’s referring to putting things in patterns, and basic organizational ‘spacializing.’ A driving theme throughout both the textbook and VI is that although our sensory experiences appear to be natural, automatic, and effortless, in actuality we have spent thousands of hours practicing, modifying, and almost perfecting these abilities such that seeing, hearing, and feeling can almost be thought of as skills rather than innate faculties. Generally this argument is a tough sell to people but when you are able to hook them up to a brand new computer game or simulation and they can use it effortlessly without reading a manual they can see that they must have some sort of inner skill that allows them to use the device without practice. Basically the computer metaphor has gone a long way in making abstract cognitive constructs like intelligence or consciousness more easy to grasp, and this is a continuation of that.
One interesting question I have is when we will also begin to implement eye-tracking technology. As our text and reader mention we only see a very small amount of our visual field in full clarity; namely, the part which falls on the ‘all cone’ part, the fovea. If only one user was watching a monitor would it save energy or memory to have only this area in full clarity diverting the resources for clarity to other functions while the person was not looking there? Certainly this would be beneficial at jobs where confidentiality is necessary. At US Cellular they have a cover over the screen such that you can only see the screen from directly in front, so no one walking buy can read it. What if only 7 (or so) letters at a time were visible wherever the worker was looking?
Then, the programer here mentions that within a few years the gloves would be gone, and the technology will be built into architecture, all electronics, books, chairs, etc. Imagine a world where all objects in the world sync up with your eyes via eye-tracking tech and become either clear or not based on where you're looking, and who's doing the looking. Could pharmaceutical ad's be seen only by the elderly, pregnant, or chemically depressed? Could smoking ad's be seen by adults but not kids?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6uHotlXvPo
I chose this link for a variety of reasons, two very "assignment appropriate" and one other personal reason.
Reason #1
I think it's unbelievable the process our body goes through to relay messages from the reception of a stimulus via one of our senses, the route it takes to the brain, and then the brain sending out signals to the body to make your body physiologically respond to the stimulus. Watching the video makes me think of occurrences when an individual responds to a situation "incorrectly." For example, I would be more interested in knowing what's happening when someone laughs at something that isn't really "funny." Is it a neuron misfiring, or is it something in the environment that causes it?
Reason #2
Looking at this video from the perspective of the viewer, it does an unbelievable job keeping the attention of the viewers with the various animations and sound effects. It's very appealing and relatively easy to listen to while maintaining its ability to be informative as well as concise.
Reason #3
I just think that computer graphics animation is cool no matter how you look at it.
http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo.htm
For this divergent activity, I chose to examine stereograms. This ties into the chapter because your mind constructs the lines to see the image, much like the examples of the triangles in the reader. When I was younger, I remember having books filled with these images that the reader must stare at for minutes before the 3-D image finally pops out. I always struggled with these activities, and had to have the object traced for me before I could see it. To get them to work, I had to place the picture directly in front of my nose and slowly pull the picture away. I never understood why this worked, until I did more research on the topic today.
Stereograms are based on your brain’s perception of depth. Stereograms work when your eyes slowly drift out of focus after staring at an image for a long time. Your eyes begin to focus on the background pattern, and this is when the object seems to appear to you in 3-D form. Color plays an important role in stereograms because they provide visual cues for your brain. Lighter colored objects appear closer, while darker colored images appear further away.
http://www.inf.ufsc.br/~otuyama/eng/stereogram/basic/index.html
An interesting point about stereograms that relates to class is how the reader views them. This second website gives a good demonstration of where your eyes are focusing when viewing the stereogram to produce the shape. If the image pops out and appears to be coming off the page, the reader is viewing the image with their eyes parallel. If the image appears to cave into the page, or convergent, the reader is viewing the image with their eyes crossed. Depth perception is done automatically by your brain when viewing the world. It happens quickly to avoid being attacked, or harmed by objects coming at you. Stereograms work however by tricking the brain into misperceiving the depth of the pattern, so it appears to be 3-D when in fact is 2-D.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/3-d-glasses.htm
The website I found explains how 3D glasses work and the different types of glasses that are used. I wanted to look at how they worked because we see basically everything in 3D; even when watching movies or television. The screens are obviously flat but the objects that we see on the screen are 3D objects. Then in 1922 the first 3D movie was made. Our technology got even more advanced and we could actually see these objects as 3D in front of us; like we're actually there!
This website mentions how our eye sight is binocular and that our eyes basically see the same thing; but a little different. Just like how Professor Maclin explained how our eyes see color, they mostly overlap. In 3D movies, they use two different projectors with differernt polarization. The glasses make it so one eye can only see one polarization and the other eye can only see the other polarization. Giving off the 3D effect.
In chapter 2 of our reader it talks about 3D objects and how our eyes take in the image and our brain analyzes it into a 3D object. So our eyes already see everything as 3D and then we put these glasses over our eyes that turns the screen images into 3D. It's almost like it's extra 3D! If that was possible.
For this weeks divergence assignment I looked into the Kanizsa Triangle a bit more. The image is three pac-man looking circles all facing inward that make the illusion of a triangle in the center of them. There really isn’t a triangle there. If you cover the circles the triangle disappears to your eye. When you uncover them the triangle reappears because you reconstruct it.
In the reader it explains how you can copy the image into a computer and the scanner doesn’t pick up the triangle image but we can still see it. The triangle actually looks a brighter white and stands out to the viewer but the computer or scanner only sees the three pac-man circles. I didn’t find the Kanizsa triangle in the text book but I did find an interactive web site.
On the web site you can change the colors, shapes, add extra images and even add edges to the triangle to see it clearer. In the book the image was small and playing with the colors ect you can really see how and what you are seeing.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/Geometry/EdgeIllusion.shtml
http://health.howstuffworks.com/brain-damage-art.htm
During class this week we talked a little about the functions of the right hemisphere vs the left hemisphere. So for this weeks web divergence, I decided to look a little more into it.
The Website that I took this article from it talked about a lady who underwent surgery to remove a tumor in her brain she began to experience certain changes in her abilities. Prior to the surgery she had always been a left brain kind of person. She focused her attention on science and medicine. After the surgery her right brain began to take over and since then she has experienced more artistic adventures. She said that she had to give up her medical work and focused more on her artistic abilities. She did mention that before the surgery she could barely draw a stick figure, but can now spend hours working on dramatic pieces.
The Sensation and Perception book speaks about development of the newborn mind. In this case I would relate to the woman who underwent the surgery as having a new mind(she has now been forced to rely on the other hemisphere, and therefore has to develop it). The book speaks about developing perception at a young age and all that goes into it. As you grow older your mind begins to remember things that they have preiously seen. This gets placed into a catergory in the brain meant for safe-keeping so to speak. After Sandy began to develop skills as an artists she remembers them when moving onto something else. This combines with other skills she is learning through her experiences and helps her overall with her work. Sandy begins to recognize colors, brightness, patterns, techniques, etc.
After reading through the provided materials I made sense out of what was happenin, but it also raises more questions. After Sandy's surgery would she have to start from scratch (so to speak) with the development of her right brain? Or would her previous knowledge help her in the development of the right brain? And could Sandy no longer take part in her medical studies because she could not make sense out of what she had already accomplished? Or because she just lost all interest in it? But this article was very enlightening and shows that nothing is for certain in life.
I have always been fascinated with science and medial surgeries. So this post will be devoted to sight restoration.
Blind man sees wife for first time after having a TOOTH implanted into his eye.
Blind man sees wife for first time
The 42-year-old builder was left blind after an accident at work more than a decade ago.
How the procedure works:
1) The tooth is removed ad chiseled through to hold the man-made lens.
2) A patch of skin is taken from the inside of the cheek and placed into the eye for 2 months so it can acquire its own blood supply.
3) The tooth segment is transplanted into the eye socket. The flap of skin is paritally lifted from the eye and placed over the new base.
4) A hole is cut in the grafted cornea to let light through, restoring the patients sight.
Man's restored sight offers new view of vision.
Restored sight offers new view of vision
Michael May lost his sight to a chemical explosion when he was 31/2 years old. He eventually lost his left eye and remained blind in his right until the surgery in 2000.
Three years after surgery restored sight to May's right eye, researchers say May's case shows how vision is more than just eye function. Blindness has long-term effects on how the brain processes information and constructs one's view of the world.
Three-dimensional perception and the ability to recognize complex objects such as the faces of family and friends remain severely impaired. He strains to tell the difference between a man and a woman. He describes a cube as a square with extra lines.
Sight restored in less than a month using stem cell contact lenses.
Stem cell contact lenses
Employing three patients who were blind in one eye, the researchers obtained stem cells from their healthy eyes and cultured them in extended wear contact lenses for ten days. The surfaces of the patients’ corneas were cleaned and the contact lenses inserted. Within 10 to 14 days the stem cells began to recolonize and repair the cornea.
Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third, who could previously read the top few rows of the chart, is now able to pass the vision test for a driver’s license. encouraging. The simplicity and low cost of the technique also means that it could be carried out in poorer countries.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/231629?GT1=43002
UNATTAINABLE BEAUTY
I saw this article on my MSN homepage and it made me think of sensation and perception. This website includes images of popular celebrities who have been a part of some sort of airbrushing scandal. Some of these pictures are absolutely ridiculous. There is a picture of Kate Winslet clearly doesn't look anything like her. There is also a picture of a Ralph Lauren model that they photocopied so little that the dimensions would have to be impossible, and you later find out she was fired by Ralph Lauren for being too heavy. She weighed 120 pounds. When I really start to look at all of these celebrities critically it is obvious that they aren't that skinny, but what makes us believe they are?
It reminded me of “The Devil’s Triangle” from the reader. The devils triangle is impossible to make, yet we still identify it as a triangle, and at first don’t recognize that this is an impossible figure. However, upon closer examination you can see that these dimensions aren’t reasonable. This goes along with how skinny they make celebrities, when you first look at them they look normal and you can recognize them as normal, but upon closer examination you can see clearly that the dimensions are not reasonable at all. This is what the reader refers to as phenomenal sense.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hzQCPi7vpLNxRqc9-GXSpzA5hP3A
This link discusses a new technology recently unveiled by researchers to assist cardiologists during surgery. This new invention will help cardiologists to view a patient’s coronary arteries during surgery to better treat heart disease and similar disorders. Although this new technology is still in its early stages of testing, it is proving to have many promising contributions in the medical field. With this new form a medical imagery doctors will be able to better estimate the length, branching outlines and angles of heart arteries, while including blockages. In addition to benefitting the doctors, this new software system will decrease the need for several other images which means less exposure to radiation for the patients, and furthermore, it will lessen the time needed by doctors to examine the images compared to other standard 2-D systems.
The reader explains how people are able to visually construct 3-D images using the basic rules for visual intelligence; however, this link explains the benefits of what 3-D imagery is able to contribute to the real world. Similarly, the reader touches on the benefits that visual intelligence has on technology by mentioning the Mars Pathfinder. The Mars Pathfinder uses technology based vision in order to allow people to view images that may have otherwise been impossible. If it wasn’t for understanding visual intelligence, scientists may still be questioning what lies on Mars, likewise, this new 3-D system has the power to allow eyes on the inside of the body.
www.vision3d.com/stereo.html
1. I viewing this site, It seems like its basically elaborating on how humans see in 2 dimensions and 3 dimensions. It spends sometime time on telling you what 3D really is. Also it tell you how to view 3deminsional objects. Some other things this site talks about is Vision therapy and vision health. I found the most interesting part about this site to be the information about 3Deminsional viewing.
2. I think one of the main reasons why I picked this site was because it did a great job interacting with the reader as far as talking about the rules and showing how 3 dimensional objects should be viewed. Another reason why I chose this was because its another form of optical illusion and this site explains how not to be fooled by construction.
3. The website was more of an informative site that had a great deal of facts and techniques. It talked about the parallel viewing method by saying the lines of sight of your eyes move outward toward parallel and meet in the distance at a point well behind and beyond the image. That's why it's called parallel viewing. It also stated that the various muscles in your eye that have direct control of your lens use relaxation and they strengthen. Another method this site used was the Cross eyed method. This is when you aim your eyes so that the lines of sight of your eyes cross in front of the image. One difference between these two methods were that the muscles in your eye that control lens do different things such as this method contracts strongly and shortens and the parallel method uses relaxation and strengthens.
4. The reader also went in to some specific details on how you construct 3 dimensional objects. It also displayed a verity of rules to go by when you are interrupting 3D. The rule of generic looks at the V which helps you have a better construction of the vertex. I think this would go with the cross eye method because you have to intersect the lines when you construct a V.
5. The textbook went in to some specific details with the different figures and terms. I thought that did a better job than the reader did because it shows you how the 3D vision works with the different side of your brain. Almost like that picture you showed in class. The website showed a picture that was similar as well. Some key terms I thought were important in looking at 3d Was Spatial Frequency which refers to the number of times a pattern repeats itself in a given space. The text also talks in great detail about the Lateral Gesticulate Nucleus which is a part in the thalamus that receives input form the retinal ganglion cells. One term I think is directly related towards 3d is Filter because its a neuron that allows you to pass through some frequencies and block out others.
6. In viewing these 3 sources, I thought they all had a distinctive way of explaining 3Dementional vision. This caused me to understand it more thoroughly because they all came from different perspectives. I thought the website laid the information out there a little bit easier to understand than the textbook because the textbook had a lot of terms that were harder to interpret.
Last week we all got to have a very up close encounter with the structures of the eye, so this week I thought I would look into the functions of those structures, and answer a few of my own curiosities. The rods and cones in our eyes do so much for visual information processing, I really wanted to look more into color perceptions. I have always wondered what exactly the world looks like to a color blind person. Being able to see color myself I was unsure if there was just a lack of color as if the world is all in gray scale. This is actually very rare to have no color sensation and is know as monochromacy. I thought too that possibly other colors filled in the spaces for those that couldn't be processed correctly. That's not really it either. It's much like the conundrum you find yourself in when you ask what a blind person sees.... they just don't, it's not black or dark or nothingness, it's really a wild idea to wrap your head around. But being able to see, and not really understanding what life without vision would be like, we can't really comprehend not having the sense of vision at all. The same goes with colorblindness, many people who are colorblind may not realize they are because there never has been that color present in their world, there is nothing missing until a vision test tells them there is.
http://colorvisiontesting.com/what%20colorblind%20people%20see.htm
This isn't the most interactive of web sites, but there are quite a few examples of the different types of colorblindness and how various scenes would look to those who are colorblind. Enjoy!
As I was searching the web for something to post this week I had one of those sudden shivers down my spine. First I brushed it off as a small annoyance and then I started thinking... that is one of my least favorite sensations..wait sensation.... I should find out what causes that! So I did I just asked google and I found out that it is part of a fight or flight response. It is caused by a feeling of fear or anxiety that produces adrenaline into the hypothalamus and there it is turned into a physical respenonse known as "the chills" "raising your hackles" or "the goosebumps". It affects your erector pilli which are what we call "goosebumps" but are actually tiny muscle below the skin. So next time you get the chills quite stop and think about what is going on and if you have somehow reacted a fight or flight response!
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=533759
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/robots.html
In class, we briefly talked about robot vacuum cleaners. It seems almost normal that more and more robots are being developed but that fact made me wonder how robots actually work.
The website I found does a pretty good job at explaining how robots work. Robots typically only are made to only have one sense: vision. What robots have can be compared to human vision but is not exactly the same. They usually have a digital camera, (eyes for humans), and a computer (the brain for humans). The camera takes an image and then sends it to the computer to be analyzed. The human visual system, as we know, is much more complex. It is not enough to just see objects and know what they are. We also have to make distinguishing decisions about the objects. For example, we know that a room looks different in the dark than in the light but how would a robot know this?
Computers are not exactly like the human brain in that they must be programmed. The human brain comes loaded with innate information for a person. A computer must be told exact information before it "knows" anything. Robots do not think but rather follow instructions. This means that a robot must be programmed to recognize something like light differences so that it will know that objects in a certain room are the same whether the light is bright or dim.
I feel like I really couldn't find what I was looking for concerning robot vision but that maybe because I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping would be explained. This website was the easiest to understand and the most concise. I think I was hoping for a more exciting explanation for robot vision that cameras and computers even though that is a very obvious explanation as I think about it now. I might be looking for something more detailed about how robot vision works but I really had a tough time finding much to satisfy my curiosity.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/robot.htm
This site is also really informative but I felt like it was harder to find things to relate to class and my main point of interest which is robot vision. It's definitely worth looking at if you're interested though.
Also, it is very entertaining to watch robots in action.
I searched "robot vision" on YouTube and there are so many awesome videos. You guys should check some of them out!
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web1/Vasiliadis.html
After discussing split brain surgeries in class, I decided to do a little more research on them. On this website, it tells more about some of the more unusual behaviors that individuals might exhibit if their corpus callosum was cut, separating the right and left hemispheres.
One case that I thought was particularly interesting on this website was about a man who had had the procedure done, and after getting into an argument with his wife started hitting her with his left hand and protecting her with his right hand. A possible explanation for this may be that, according to http://www.solhaam.org/articles/humind.html, the right hemisphere which would control the left side of the body is more driven by the man's emotions at the time, which were upset. The left side of the brain, controlling his right hand were more logical, and were pobably taking into account the consequences of this action and defending her against his own attacks.
Another similar behavior of someone who had a split brain surgery was a man who was trying to put on a pair of pants with one hand and was trying to take them off with the other. After thinking about this one, I figured maybe he just really hates wearing pants which would be driven by his emotions and was trying to take them off, while the right side of his brain was telling him to put them on because that is what is socially acceptable in our society.
I thought this website was pretty interesting and emphasized what we already know about the importance of the corpus callosum when it comes to the right and left hemispheres communicating with each other as well as some of the functions of each half of the brain. It's hard to imagine being one of the people who have had this procedure done and not being able to do what we think are very simple tasks that feel like they don't take any thought or effort
As I was driving home from night class tonight, I got to thinking about how our eyes adjust to the dark. As I was contemplating this, It made me interested and excited to research it further. I find it fascinating how our vision has so many dimensions and range. I've always taken advantage of the simple things such as seeing and this class has really made me re-think how complicated this process is, and it's also made me eager to learn more about the process of vision. The website that I found goes into great detail of explaining this process. To summarize a little of what the website stated: The pupil contracts and expands depending on the amount of light, and can physically block the amount of light entering the eye in bright situations. The website goes into more detail and here's the link http://health.howstuffworks.com/eyes-adjust-darkness.htm. There was also a fun fact that was listed on the website that stated that The retinal used int he eye is derived from vitamin A. If a person's diet is low in vitamin A, there is not enough retinal in the rods and therefore; not enough rhodospin. People who lack vitamin A often suffer from night blindness. This fact was very interesting to me because I suffer from farely severe night blindness and now I know that it could because I don't have enough vitamin A in my diet, very interesting!.
The website that I found was http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,13765,00.asp. This website caught my eye because it focused on something that I gained some experience with my freshman year while I was an art student. I was in a drawing class and we had to create images using pastels. We had to take two completely different colors, and try to make them appear the same, and also take two of the same exact color and try to make them completely different, just by using different colored backgrounds. This was actually a tricky task to do, using pastels, but in the end it turned out to be very successful and interesting.
This website was focused on just that. It focused on how colors may appear differently under different circumstances. Colors may appear a different color than they actually are depending on other colors that surround it. I learned that simultaneous contrast can affect details, color, and shades that you may see. The website gives different examples where colors seem as though they are different shades, when in fact they are the same, and also colors that are different that actually seem the same color.
I thought that this was an interesting website because it made me think of how designers and advertisements can use different pairings of colors to there advantage to help them become successdul. Also, it is just interesting seeing how your eyes can manipulate colors, depending on their surroundings.
Something I thought was interesting since you brought it up in class last week was how people are always calculating distance. How people are able to get into a line going to class and just walk at the speed of people all around them. Last week I had one of those moments were I tried to step around a person but we each kept on steping the same way and it took like 2 or 3 tries to finally get arond that person. After that I really started to think about the ways we try to move. The website I found talked a lot about the ways we send and recieve all of our different messages. How we see something and its sent back through our LGN which is sent to our spinal cord which helps move our legs and arms.
The website I found also talked about people with moving disabilities. The major ones that the covered were parkinsons and alzhiemers while another one they talked about was alcoholism. Saying that it deterioate the cerrebellum which will lead to trouble walking if you drin enough for a long enough time.
It also talks about different ways that you can keep your body in good shape and have a healthy lifestyle.
I thought taht this was all realative to our class because of how the first thing after I thought of after doing a little "dance" with a complete stranger was about how we both complelty misjudged the way the other person would move.
The website was: http://www.dana.org/news/brainhealth/detail.aspx?id=10070
When we met in groups with our mind maps to discuss chapter two we were able to cover many of the concepts in the chapter with clarity. However; there was some confusion on the subject of linear perspective. We ran out of time to explore the meaning of the way an image is projected as explained on page 37 of our text.
In attempting to understand this concept I explored the the internet to attempt a narration of my own comprehension for this posting. I found two sites that illustrate and discuss the concept in greater depth than our text. The first one is from an artists perspective, and the second discusses the historical importance of the artists contribution to modern science in enabling technological advance that would not otherwise be possible without the Renaissance discovery of linear perspective.
1. http://xahlee.org/3d/perspective_drawing.html
In this first link, scroll down to the image of a cube projected onto the plane. As you can see, there are multiple lines coming from the edges of the cube and project forward to plan where we are observing the cube. The shape summarizes how our eyes might see the cube - as if we observe the boundary of the cube in two dimensions. However, we add depth and perspective so that we see the cube in 3-D. Pretty amazing, really!
2. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0104-59702006000500010&script=sci_arttext
This second link shows how much we evolved as humans when we learned to draw in 3-D using linear perspective. The author argues that this finding led to the rise of modern science. The artists attempt to more accurately represent our physical reality led to an evolution of human awareness of that reality, including the "original science of optics".
Fascinating stuff if you're in the mood for a little historical understanding of the type of painting used in our reader to convey this aspect of our visual intelligence!
One of the things that have really impacted me is the case of Mr. S who was diagnosed with “visual form agnosia”. The idea that someone is unable to see objects or recognize a family member is a little bit scary. People suffering from visual agnosia take in through their eyes the same visual information that we do, but they perceive only parts of details not the whole object because they have lost the normal ability to assemble edges, colors, and motions into visual objects. This means that they can’t construct objects through their visual system like we do. Nevertheless, they haven’t lost the concept of object. They also haven’t lost their ability to perceive objects from other modalities the same way than when we close our eyes and touch an object, we create a tactile object. They can recognize an object by touch or a person by the sound of their voice just like Mr. S did to recognize his family members.
The textbook also has the same examples and explains that this impairment can be a result of brain lesions, brain tumors, or brain injury caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.
http://brainandsky.blogspot.com/2008/07/case-of-df-visual-form-agnosia_03.html
This website shows a study conducted by Goodale and Humphrey in 1998 based the case of DF who also suffered from visual form agnosia.
http://vectors.usc.edu/issues/4/malperception/agnosia.html
This website has a visual simulation of what visual agnosiac see which I thought was very weird and interesting. It is almost like seeing an abstract painting.
I was watching SportsCenter today and wondered what makes elite athletes hand eye coordination better than those of the average person.
When I thought about this more I thought of Larry Fitzgerald and his crazy hands. Larry Fitzgerald made a huge splash in the 08-09 season, especially in Superbowl 43. It seemed like when Curt Warner threw the ball up, Larry would go catch it. Most scouting experts who scouted Larry in the combine graded him as an average athlete. He ran at 4.6 in the 40 meter dash, a mediocre time for his position. He also did not have the biggest leaping ability at his position. Can we say he has soft hands, or great body control? Maybe, but how did he gather in 1400+ receiving yards last season?
Researchers have looked at this question and drew some pretty interesting conclusions.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123207803343289089.html
A researcher by the name of Joan Vickers has studied the movements of elite hockey goalies, baseball, and football players. She has strongly concluded that they posses what she calls a "quiet eye". This meaning that the elite athlete can identify the target object and fix their gaze on it longer than the average person at a farther distance. This extreme concentration helps them catch a ball, block a puck, or hit a home run.
It is also interesting to note that Larry Fitzgerald's grandfather was an optometrist. He would put Larry through complicated hand-eye coordination drills. One for instance was hitting a painted baseball with a rolling pin that had corresponding colors on it. Larry thinks drills like this helped him on and off the field.
Vickers also assumes that with this "quiet eye", when a ball is thrown in the air, Larry turns on his mini-cpu. The brain is such an advanced micro processor, when a ball is thrown many chemical interactions are sent through the retina, down the eye, in the optic nerve to the brain, and back again. As a teenager, Larry, got a job as the ball boy for the Vikings. For six summers Larry has seen millions of passes and has been catching balls for decades. This possibly helps him react faster, and make these calculations quicker so he knows where to put his hands to catch any pass.
This year, Larry, finished the season with 1100 yards receiving and 13 touchdowns, his fifth 1000 yard receiving season in a row.
As I was driving back to Cedar Falls one weekend it began to get dark out and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. How our eyes adjust to the light and darkness is very interesting and I wanted to find out more about it. I found a website that explained how amazing it is that our eyes have a range that lets us see bright sunlight and total darkness. There are three different parts that make up the range that our eyes have. These parts are: The pupil, which expands and contracts depending on the amount of light. It can also block the amount of light that enters the eye. Rods and cones also play a big part. Rod cells work best in low light and perceive white and black images. Cones work best in dark light and perceive bright light. The third factor is Rhodopsin, which is a chemical that is found in the rod cells. Rhodipsin is the main reason why we can see when it is dark out. This chemical helps the rods absorb photons and perceive light. There is also an interesting video about the bionic eye!
http://health.howstuffworks.com/eyes-adjust-darkness.htm
http://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_drive_3d_data_with_a_gesture.html
I found a talk similar to this a few years ago and am very happy to see the topic pop up again. Basically this talk is about a new type of computer interface that allows you to use pantomime to interact with the computer software instead of the standard point-click interface (is it me or does the guy look strangely like Dr. MacLin? Maybe MacLin if he’d been a computer nerd instead?). The Nintendo Wii has begun to implement technology like this and this programmer believes that features like this will be standard in 5 years. If it looks familiar the same guy who made this interface helped design the program that Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report.
What originally drew me to this type of technology (the original talk was on multiple-point touch screen technology, where you can use two fingers to zoom in and out, etc.) is that an extra benefit to technologies such as this is that they are intuitive. They find that when they make the computer software more life-like, naturally, it just seems obvious what you need to do in order to use the device. I foresee a day when people are able to pick up a completely new device, not even be told what it is, and they will use it as though they’ve been doing so for years, because, in a manner of speaking, they have. With the URP (Urban Planning) program they mention that even children can use the program knowing nothing about urban planning or the software.
At one point he makes reference to our own “wet-ware” and that spacializing data helps us understand it easier; I assume he’s referring to putting things in patterns, and basic organizational ‘spacializing.’ A driving theme throughout both the textbook and VI is that although our sensory experiences appear to be natural, automatic, and effortless, in actuality we have spent thousands of hours practicing, modifying, and almost perfecting these abilities such that seeing, hearing, and feeling can almost be thought of as skills rather than innate faculties. Generally this argument is a tough sell to people but when you are able to hook them up to a brand new computer game or simulation and they can use it effortlessly without reading a manual they can see that they must have some sort of inner skill that allows them to use the device without practice. Basically the computer metaphor has gone a long way in making abstract cognitive constructs like intelligence or consciousness more easy to grasp, and this is a continuation of that.
One interesting question I have is when we will also begin to implement eye-tracking technology. As our text and reader mention we only see a very small amount of our visual field in full clarity; namely, the part which falls on the ‘all cone’ part, the fovea. If only one user was watching a monitor would it save energy or memory to have only this area in full clarity diverting the resources for clarity to other functions while the person was not looking there? Certainly this would be beneficial at jobs where confidentiality is necessary. At US Cellular they have a cover over the screen such that you can only see the screen from directly in front, so no one walking buy can read it. What if only 7 (or so) letters at a time were visible wherever the worker was looking?
Then, the programer here mentions that within a few years the gloves would be gone, and the technology will be built into architecture, all electronics, books, chairs, etc. Imagine a world where all objects in the world sync up with your eyes via eye-tracking tech and become either clear or not based on where you're looking, and who's doing the looking. Could pharmaceutical ad's be seen only by the elderly, pregnant, or chemically depressed? Could smoking ad's be seen by adults but not kids?