Perception and Action - Science topic

Dear Belkis, can you share your final solution for DCM with multiple sessions? Thanks

Hi everyone, I am trying to figure out (and defend) what method to use for my research 'Perception of Digital Literacy Skills Among Employees and its Impact During Covid-19'. I was told measuring perception has its limitation. Do you agree?

In my opinion, yes.

But I think the subject's motor intention for which using the tool could be more important than holding the tool itself, or at least you have to control that variable someway. In our experiment, participants were less precise in identifying graspable objects as hand-related tools after having learnt to grasp with foot-pressing (by pressing a pedal in a virtual reality simulation); simply pressing the pedal not-to-grasp did not show the same effect.

By applying this to your scenario: I would hypothesize that participants would be able to identify more easily the screw if they are holding the screwdriver to actually use it to screw; if you prime them to using the screwdriver to stab something, or to point at something, or other, you will not find the same effect. ...conversely, if they are holding an object which is not a screwdriver but you prime them to use it to screw, you will find the facilitating effect.

In other words: it's not the tool per se which is important, but the motor intention you're representing about it prior to usage.

I would apply this hypothesis to your second question too: it depends whether the visual features are relevant to the intention, or not (e.g.: the same object can have multiple affordances, depending on how you want to use it).

Best!

Dear Vinod:

You have outlined the dark side of peer review in a frank and thorough way.

If one believes that one's article is worthy of publication and it is rejected, perhaps it has been submitted to the wrong journal. The best course of action is to shrug and move on, trying again with another journal, choosing one that looks like a natural home for the article.

When asked to write a peer review, it is important to keep all this in mind, making an effort to be open-minded and generous. When possible, polite but firm suggestions should be made, with the goal of helping the author improve his text. Only when an article is clearly beyond the hope of rescue, or when the carelessness of the author makes salvation too complicated, should an article be rejected. At least this is my approach.

Warm regards,

David

Hi Ben,

We use iMotions software which connects and synchronises eye-tracking, video recordings, and video presentation together on one screen (it can also do other things, but these seem the most pertinent for your needs). Let me know if you'd like any more information, I might be able to help you further. (Here's a link to our website if you'd like to look there too: https://imotions.com/)

Best wishes,

Bryn

Yes, while there is overlap there are also areas where these experiences may be separated, I think. It will be interesting to see where this discussion goes as others contribute.

Dear Béatrice Marianne,

Thank you for the reply. It is really informative.

Regards,

Thank you Ms Nirmala

I shall definitely see these links

Asif

Dear friends,

 Although it elicited very interesting comments, Roy’s question remains largely unanswered.  In my opinion, the reason is simply because perception and action are theoretically and practically inseparable.  This was first recognized by Sherrington, and discussed in his famous 1906 book (“The Integrative Action of the Nervous System”). 

            1.  Perception and action are intimately interactive in the Perception-Action (PA) cycle, which is the biocybernetic loop of neural information processing by which the organism adjusts to its environment in all behavior.  Perception leads to action, which generates new perception, which leads to new action, and so on until a goal is reached.

            2.  The PA cycle has deep biological roots, and operates at all levels of the nervous system, from the spinal cord to the neocortex.  It is hierarchically organized along the nerve axis to handle all levels of interaction between organism and environment.  At all levels there is feed-forward and feed-back, with continuous transfer of information in both directions between perception and action.  It is experimentally difficult to “dissect” action from perception after sensation becomes perception and action transcends the reflex.

            3.  All goal-directed behavior of certain complexity is founded on the simultaneous operation of several PA cycles at different hierarchical levels serving a hierarchy of nested actions, percepts and goals, all with a different time-base.

             4.  From the point of view of cognitive neuroscience the implications of the PA-cycle organization and dynamics are enormous.  For one thing, an action can commence anywhere in the cycle: in perceptual cortex, in executive cortex, in the internal organs or in the environment.   This obviates a “center of will,” a “central executive,” or any other such construct, which inevitably leads to an infinite regress.

             5.  It follows, as a corollary, that the idea of an isolatable “transfer” from perception to action or vice versa is simplistic and experimentally fruitless.  So is the argument of what comes first, perception or action.  It can be argued, however, that the first PA cycle in life begins with action:  the neonate’s first cry and palpation of the mother’s breast in search of the nipple—all of which is, of course, in genetic phyletic memory.

            6.  The inseparability of perception and action is epitomized by mirror neurons.  In principle, mirror neurons, whether in frontal cortex or elsewhere, are embedded in the PA cycle and thus attuned to both, the perception of a stimulus and the action that it elicits.  This is true whether the stimulus is of one modality or another and whether the action is simple or complex.  The PA cycle, especially where the cortex is involved, is essentially integrative. The conversational language between two persons is the highest example of two PA cycles interacting and interlocked with each other.

            For further discussion of my views and research on the PA cycle, see:

 J.M. Fuster - Upper processing stages of the perception―action cycle.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8: 143-145, 2004.

J.M. Fuster – The prefrontal cortex makes the brain a preadaptive system. Proceedings of the IEEE, 102: 417-425, 2014.

 J.M. Fuster - The Prefrontal Cortex (Fifth Edition). Academic Press, London 2015.

            I hope someone will find this useful.  Cheers, Joaquín

Hi Thrish,

it helps if one knows why you are asking this.  Are you preparing a project proposal?  Or teaching a class?   At any rate, here's one: "The research field of morphological computation [...] explores the concepts and theories of computation in physical systems, where we investigate how motion control processes can be distributed over informational and physical dynamics."  I nicked it from a IEEE RAS call for papers for some special issue.  That definition is also a bit convolved, with constructs such as "informational dynamics" and "motion control processes".  But I think that these are just bloated phrases for simple concepts: dynamics, control.  Doing a bit more simplification, and changing the confusing "physical" to "mechanical", the whole sentence may be shortened to, "Morphological computation explores the concepts and theories of computation in mechanical systems."    (My apologies to the original authors; I think your definition was great but I just didn't quite get it.)

Patrick

Hi Franck, 

There is some evidence to suggest that response to haptic warnings is faster than auditory, which is faster than visual. See the study I've attached by Ng and Chan for this exact comparison. This seems to follow our basic understanding on human information processing that RT for visual stimulus is 250ms, 170ms for an audio stimulus, 150ms seconds for a touch stimulus.

However, I would echo what CCC has said and say that I think that context is hugely important when you are considering the modality of your information. For example, in the context of driving lower reaction times to hazards have always been seen as preferable, however in highly automated driving reacting faster may not necessarily be a good thing: suppose a driver who has been out-of-the-loop has to determine whether to take back control from a highly automated vehicle, depending on the complexity of that scenario reaction time will be more or less important. Here, the quality of the reaction/response is probably more important/useful than simply seeing how fast a driver can resume control. In this consideration of context it goes without say that the meaning of the warning to your participants, and what they are expected to do as a result of that warning, is going to have a big influence on the results you get.

I know Rob Gray at Arizona State has done some work on vibrotactile warnings in the context of driving. It may be useful to have a look at his publications, here: https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/391944

I look forward to seeing the other responses to this, and also to the idea of creating tri-sensory combinations, as per Hecht and Reiner (2009): http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-008-1626-z#page-1

All the best, 

Ty

Movement commands seem to be encoded as modules.

Other:

Regards,

Joachim

I am not aware of any applications of the theory of affordances to teaching or learning. But, the publication below may be a good starting point for how affordances fit into a coaching context.

Best,

Brandon

Hi Behazd, take a look at this paper that I wrote. 

Best, 

Pedro.

Yes, you can do this in MATLAB, using the Parallel Computing Toolbox. You can use parfeval to execute a function asynchronously on a parallel pool worker. 

If you learn to drive using a stick shift, you are very likely to hit the brake pedal when manoeuvering with an automatic, e.g. at  a car park. (You need to make sure your "clutch foot" keeps away from the pedals - this may take some effort at first).

Space-time, actually. You could, for example, see the influence of a x^3 term by creating a Hooke plot. That plot is position~aceleration. A completely straight lined plot means the oscillator (limit-cycle) reduces to a harmonic oscillator; one only with a linear stiffness term. On the other hand, a x^3 term means the angular frequency , or velocity if that's easier to imagine, in the cycle is not constant.

Now, the problem faced by your question is it's slightly under defined. Are you basing your question on an analytic model such as x"+b*x'+c*x+d*x^3=0 ? (Note this has no nonlinear damping. So it won't give you a limit cycle, per se, but a damped out cycle.). If you are, the variability means nothing because it's a noise free system. However, try simulating this an adding a Gaussian noise term ( I think), and then making the hooke plot. If there is less variability around the endpoint, this is I believe , as you might guess, due to a softening spring. This implies a slowing down as an endpoint is reached. This also predicts an increased deceleration in a Hooke plgot, which is where the 3rd order term comes from. See the Hooke plot I attached (it's my data): It is several cycles of a handheld pendulum being swung, with the average superimposed. Arrows are added to where the variability would be expected to start decreasing.

If you're familiar with Fitts' law, look up Mottet and Bootsma (1999) "Dynamics of goal-directed rhythmical aiming", I believe. They fit this type of model to movement data and give a good description.

P.s., I wrote this quickly, but if you have more questions (model fitting, etc...) let me know.

Good Luck:

Justin F.

Of course yes, physical activities will definitely help one to improve and refresh one's mind and body. If mind and body is fresh one can be more productive doesn't matter whether it is research, business or what ever. It is not necessary to do vigorously. You can do calm and quiet exercises. Yoga is a way of life which give you physical, mental and spiritual exercises simultaneously and helped me improve a lot in all stages of my life.

I affirm the opinions, sportsmen are under a lot of stress anyways and fitness has a dimension in the psychological aspect too and it is more important or i should say an equally important part as the physical health. Of course sports psychology has added quality to our understanding of varied interdisciplinary fields. The incoming of sports psychology over the years has widened the understanding and application of mainstream psychology and increased its utility to rehabilitation in a major way.

Perception needs some stimulus in relation to one who perceives. However, perception is mostly relative depending on age, sex, social, economic, educational and cultural background and bend or inclination of one who perceives. Stimulus may be light, sound, touch, taste, smell etc. All perception is stored for sometime examined, collated and resulted information is stored and used immediately or belatedly to make decisions and take actions. The one point with respect to perception is that it is continuously revised as in most cases than none our perception is not correct. For example to see moon is a small round shaped illuminating object in the sky or sun rises in the east and sets in the west orbiting the earth or to early civilized man earth was flat or a disc in the space. However, with advancement of science, our perception of moon as a small glowing object in the sky changed to a huge satellite of the earth that reflect light of the sun, the sun is considered no more orbiting the earth, rather the earth is orbiting the sun, the earth is no more flat, disc, oyster's egg like or peach shaped (Columbus) but a big somewhat elliptical ball. The science and understanding gained through testing initial perception, result mostly in revision of perception and thus changing our behaviour towards the stimulus.