The two visual systems hypothesis and contrastive underdetermination

It is important to consider the physiological and behavioral mechanisms that allow users to physically interact with virtual environments. Inspired by a neuroanatomical model of perception and action known as the two visual systems hypothesis, we conducted a study with two controlled experiments to compare four different kinds of spatial interaction: (1) voice-based input, (2) pointing with a visual cursor, (3) pointing without a visual cursor, and (4) pointing with a time-lagged visual cursor. Consistent with the two visual systems hypothesis, we found that voice-based input and pointing with a cursor were less robust to a display illusion known as the induced Roelofs effect than pointing without a cursor or even pointing with a lagged cursor. The implications of these findings are discussed, with an emphasis on how the two visual systems model can be used to understand the basis for voice and gestural interactions that support spatial target selection in large screen and immersive environments.

Visual illusions affect both movement planning and on-line control: A multiple cue position on bias and goal-directed action

Neuropsychological findings used to motivate the “two visual systems” hypothesis have been taken to endanger a pair of widely accepted claims about spatial representation in conscious visual experience. The first is the claim that visual experience represents 3‐D space around the perceiver using an egocentric frame of reference. The second is the claim that there is a constitutive link between the spatial contents of visual experience and the perceiver’s bodily actions. In this paper, I review and assess three main sources of evidence for the two visual systems hypothesis. I argue that the best interpretation of the evidence is in fact consistent with both claims. I conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between visual consciousness and rational agency.

The two visual systems hypothesis in neuroscience suggests that pointing without visual feedback may be less affected by spatial visual illusions than cognitive interactions such as judged target location. Our study examined predictions of this theory for target localization on a large-screen display. We contrasted pointing interactions under varying levels of visual feedback with location judgments of targets that were surrounded by an offset frame. As predicted by the theory, the frame led to systematic errors in verbal report of target location but not in pointing without visual feedback for some participants. We also found that pointing with visual feedback produced a similar level of error as location judgments, while temporally lagged visual feedback appeared to reduce these errors somewhat. This suggests that pointing without visual feedback may be a useful interaction technique in situations described by the two visual systems literature, especially with large-screen displays and immersive environments.

This book guides readers by gradual steps through the central concepts and debates in the philosophy of science. Using concrete examples from the history of science, Kent W. Staley shows how seemingly abstract philosophical issues are relevant to important aspects of scientific practice. Structured in two parts, the book first tackles the central concepts of the philosophy of science, such as the problem of induction, falsificationism, and underdetermination, and important figures and movements, such as the logical empiricists, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend. The second part turns to contemporary debates in the philosophy of science, such as scientific realism, explanation, the role of values in science, the different views of scientific inference, and probability. This broad yet detailed overview will give readers a strong grounding whilst also providing opportunities for further exploration. It will be of particular interest to students of philosophy, the philosophy of science, and science.

This book guides readers by gradual steps through the central concepts and debates in the philosophy of science. Using concrete examples from the history of science, Kent W. Staley shows how seemingly abstract philosophical issues are relevant to important aspects of scientific practice. Structured in two parts, the book first tackles the central concepts of the philosophy of science, such as the problem of induction, falsificationism, and underdetermination, and important figures and movements, such as the logical empiricists, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend. The second part turns to contemporary debates in the philosophy of science, such as scientific realism, explanation, the role of values in science, the different views of scientific inference, and probability. This broad yet detailed overview will give readers a strong grounding whilst also providing opportunities for further exploration. It will be of particular interest to students of philosophy, the philosophy of science, and science.

A model that is capable of maintaining the identities of individuated elements as they move is described. It solves a particular problem of underdetermination, the motion correspondence problem, by simultaneously applying 3 constraints: the nearest neighbor principle, the relative velocity principle, and the element integrity principle. The model generates the same correspondence solutions as does the human visual system for a variety of displays, and many of its properties are consistent with what is known about the physiological mechanisms underlying human motion perception. The model can also be viewed as a proposal of how the identities of attentional tags are maintained by visual cognition, and thus it can be differentiated from a system that serves merely to detect movement.

Improving the spatial resolution of magnetic resonance inverse imaging via the blipped-CAIPI acquisition scheme

This chapter discusses the concepts from the general philosophy of science for those interested in cognitive neuroscience. It covers several major topics in the philosophy of science: scientific explanation and underdetermination, reductionism and levels, and scientific realism. The debates in philosophy of science were largely set in the early-to-mid-1900s by a group of philosophers known as the logical positivists. Logical positivists criticized philosophical questions that could be solved by empirical evidence, so claims about strangers' inner minds could not be a proper subject of science. Logical positivism was largely abandoned by philosophers of science who came to doubt their commitments. Instead of this “layer cake” model, many philosophers now prefer the view of sciences as investigating overlapping subject matter according to their own principles, theories, or methods. Cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, and related disciplines may all treat different aspects of the same phenomenon or overlapping phenomena.

This paper presents a results fusion approach through multiple representations and multiple queries to tackle the problem of invariance in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). We consider the case of textures. This approach considers invariance at the query level rather than at the representation level. We use two models to capture the textural visual content of images: the autoregressive (AR) model and a perceptual (PCP) model based on a set of perceptual features. The perceptual model is used with two viewpoints: the original images viewpoint and the autocovariance function viewpoint. These representation models are not invariant with respect to geometric and photometric transformations. Then, by using results fusion of multiple representations and/or multiple queries, we show that retrieval effectiveness is improved in an important way even though the representation models are not invariant. The resulting invariant texture retrieval algorithm has two levels of results fusion (merging): 1. The first level consists in merging results returned by the different models / viewpoints (representations) for the same query in one results list using appropriate fusion models; 2. The second level consists in merging each fused list of results of different queries into a unique fused list using appropriate fusion models. Experimental retrieval results are promising.

A neurologically plausible model of the auditory perception of musical sequences is proposed, and some implications are derived for auditory imagery. In line with a cognitive neuroscience approach, a componential analysis of the major functions required of auditory perception and imagery for musical sequences is first carried out, and a minimal model of auditory imagery and perception is outlined. The minimal model makes a clear distinction between the processing subsystems required for analyzing pitch and rhythm. It also incorporates an auditory buffer for the brief retention of relatively unprocessed auditory input, an attention subsystem that permits selective intake of relevant auditory information, a memory subsystem for melodic strings that combines the outputs of pitch and rhythmic analyses into a long-term, flexible representation of the musical sequence, and an associative memory system that links the results of perceptual analyses of music with extraperceptual (semantic and episodic) information about the musical string. The present theory builds on a recent model of music perception proposed by Peretz (1993) and also accounts for data from studies of patients with disorders of rhythmic processing, thus indicating the close relationship between auditory perception and imagery for rhythmic sequences, timing, and motor processes. Recent data are used to refine and extend the minimal model and provide an organizing framework for current laboratory work.

I propose to study the integration of contemporary scientific knowledge in cognitive neuroscience and plant neurobiology in order to assess the Unity of Science hypothesis. Oppenheim and Putnam (Unity of science as a working hypothesis. In: Feigl H, Maxwell G, Scriven M (eds) Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp 3–36, 1958. Reprinted in Boyd R, Gasper P, Trout JD (1991) The Philosophy of Science) considered the sort of mereological support that the Unity of Science hypothesis may receive from the principles of ontogenesis and evolution. I shall argue that a mechanistic understanding of eukaryote communication via the propagation of action potentials shows that the principle of ontogenesis does not support the hypothesis. Although the safest bet in my view is to press on a particular form of indirect evidence that the principle of evolution provides, I shall conclude that at present the Unity of Science remains an open empirical working

The purpose of the article is to analyze the concept of contextual emergence as well as its selected applications in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In the first section the author presents the general assumptions of the emergentist model of reality. He stresses that the concept of emergence can be applied to the description of various levels of organization of nature: one of these levels is that of mental-cognitive processes, analyzed within the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In the subsequent sections, he introduces the definitions of contextual emergence and systemic causation and he points to their selected applications to mental-cognitive systems. In the concluding part, he presents the ideas of Gerald Edelman and Michael Gazzaniga on the role of contextual explanations as well as the concepts of emergence in the philosophy of biology and cognitive neuroscience. He also indicates the possibility of incorporating the concept of contextual emergence into active externalism and the extended cognition theory.

In this book, Ronald Giere seeks to resolve the opposition between objectivism and constructivism by suggesting a third way, perspectival realism, according to which both sides are partly right. To prove his case, Giere reconstructs some of the acknowledged puzzle pieces in the philosophy of science (theory, observation, etc.). To my mind, of most interest is the piece Giere calls “representional model.” Constituting the basis of every science, it functions as a template that governs data collection as well as theory development. Throughout the book, Giere illustrates his various propositions with examples taken from the natural sciences. I contend that the propositions are just as relevant for the social sciences and present some examples in order to indicate this. Especially, the concept of model is useful both for a better understanding of social science and for increasing its cumulativity.

Correct perception of self motion is of vital importance for both the control of our position and posture when moving around in our environment. With the development of human controlled vehicles as bicycles, cars and aircraft motion perception became of interest for the understanding of vehicle control. For flight simulation the understanding of motion perception became even more important where the motion stimulation of the simulator pilot is influenced by the limitations of the ground based simulation process. Motion perception as performed by the central nervous system, CNS, is based on sensory inputs from the visual, vestibular and somatosensory system. These sensory systems provide the information about body orientation and self motion. Due to the different dynamic characteristics of the sensors smart processing of the sensory information is required to perceive spatial orientation and motion over a wide range of conditions. The paper describes how in the perception process flow and attitude information from the visual system, linear and rotational motion information from the vestibular system, and body orientation from the somatosensory system is combined in the motion perception process. Based on available knowledge motion perception models were developed and an overview of these models will be presented. Three perception models will be discussed to explain how the visual and vestibular systems contribute to the percept of motion. The limitations of ground based motion simulation affects pilot's motion perception in flight simulation. Differences between the output of the perception model stimulated with the visual and vestibular motion cues in the real aircraft and in the simulated aircraft will be presented for a representative aircraft maneuver. © 2011 by R.J.A.W. Hosman. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.