Influence of Complexity and Gestalt Principles on Aesthetic Preferences for Building Façades: An Eye Tracking Study.

Buildings are an integral part of our physical environment and have aesthetic significance with respect to the organizational integrity of architectural elements. While Gestalt principles are essential in design education, their relationship with architectural features remains understudied. The present study explored how Gestalt principles and complexity levels influence evaluations of building façades through the use of questionnaires and eye tracking. Twenty-four two-dimensional black and white façade drawings, manipulated using selected Gestalt principles (similarity and proximity) to achieve different levels of complexity (low, medium & high), were presented to 79 participants. The results suggested a negative linear relationship between aesthetic ratings and complexity levels across selected Gestalt principles. In addition, as expected, participants had the highest number of fixations, shortest fixation durations, and lowest aesthetic ratings for higher levels of complexity. Results involving Gestalt principles revealed that proximity-based designs received higher aesthetic ratings, demanded less time, elicited lower number of fixations, and resulted in shorter fixation durations. Conversely, similarity-based designs received lower aesthetic ratings, demanded more time, elicited higher number of fixations, and resulted in longer fixation durations. These findings offer insights into architectural aesthetic experiences and inform future research directions.

Visual hallucinations in Parkinson's disease: spotlight on central cholinergic dysfunction.

Visual hallucinations are a common non-motor feature of Parkinson's disease and have been associated with accelerated cognitive decline, increased mortality and early institutionalisation. Despite their prevalence and negative impact on patient outcomes, the repertoire of treatments aimed at addressing this troubling symptom is limited. Over the last two decades, significant contributions have been made in uncovering the pathological and functional mechanisms of visual hallucinations, bringing us closer to the development of a comprehensive neurobiological framework. Convergent evidence now suggests that degeneration within the central cholinergic system may play a significant role in the genesis and progression of visual hallucinations. Here, we outline how cholinergic dysfunction may serve as a potential unifying neurobiological substrate underlying the multifactorial and dynamic nature of visual hallucinations. Drawing upon previous theoretical models, we explore the impact that alterations in cholinergic neurotransmission has on the core cognitive processes pertinent to abnormal perceptual experiences. We conclude by highlighting that a deeper understanding of cholinergic neurobiology and individual pathophysiology may help to improve established and emerging treatment strategies for the management of visual hallucinations and psychotic symptoms in Parkinson's disease.

Behavioural stochastic resonance across the lifespan.

Stochastic resonance (SR) is the phenomenon wherein the introduction of a suitable level of noise enhances the detection of subthreshold signals in non linear systems. It manifests across various physical and biological systems, including the human brain. Psychophysical experiments have confirmed the behavioural impact of stochastic resonance on auditory, somatic, and visual perception. Aging renders the brain more susceptible to noise, possibly causing differences in the  SR phenomenon between young and elderly individuals. This study investigates the impact of noise on motion detection accuracy throughout the lifespan, with 214 participants ranging in age from 18 to 82. Our objective was to determine the optimal noise level to induce an SR-like response in both young and old populations. Consistent with existing literature, our findings reveal a diminishing advantage with age, indicating that the efficacy of noise addition progressively diminishes. Additionally, as individuals age, peak performance is achieved with lower levels of noise. This study provides the first insight into how SR changes across the lifespan of healthy adults and establishes a foundation for understanding the pathological alterations in perceptual processes associated with aging.

The influence of visual elements in Chinese food labels on consumers' visual perception: insights from an eye-tracking study.

To investigate the impact of four visual elements, namely text, colour, image, and shape, on the visual perception of Chinese consumers when observing nutrition labels, as well as to enhance their attention towards nutritional information, this study examines the visual effects of nutrition labels incorporating these elements through eye movement experiments, questionnaire surveys, subjective evaluations, and other research methods. The aim is to determine the optimal design solution. The results revealed that participants displayed the highest level of attention towards the round x image group, followed by the colour group. Thus, exceptional image design and a suitable colour scheme can significantly enhance consumers' attention during browsing. This study offers valuable references and guidance for the redesign of food nutrition labels, while also presenting research insights for the application of visual perception in other domains.

Customized Visual Discrimination Digital Therapy According to Visual Field Defects in Chronic Stroke Patients.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Visual perceptual learning (VPL) may improve visual field defects (VFDs) after chronic stroke, but the optimal training duration and location remain unknown. This prospective study aimed to determine the efficacy of 8 weeks of VFD-customized visual discrimination training in improving poststroke VFDs. METHODS: Prospectively enrolled patients with poststroke VFDs initially received no training for 8 weeks (no-training phase). They subsequently underwent our customized VPL program that included orientation-discrimination tasks in individualized blind fields and central letter-discrimination tasks three times per week for 8 weeks (training phase). We analyzed the luminance detection sensitivity and deviation as measured using Humphrey visual field tests before and after the no-training and training phases. The vision-related quality of life was assessed at baseline and at a 16-week follow-up using the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI-VFQ-25). RESULTS: Changes in mean total deviation (MTD) scores were greater during the training phase than during the no-training phase (defective hemifield, p=0.002; whole field, p=0.004). The MTD scores improved during the training phase (defective hemifield, p=0.004; whole field, p=0.016), but not during the no-training phase (defective hemifield, p=0.178; whole field, p=0.178). The difference between the improved and worsened areas (≥6 dB changes in luminance detection sensitivity) was greater during the training phase than during the no-training phase (p=0.009). The vision-specific social functioning subscore of the NEI-VFQ-25 improved after the 16-week study period (p=0.040). CONCLUSIONS: Our 8-week VFD-customized visual discrimination training protocol may effectively improve VFDs and vision-specific social functioning in chronic stroke patients.

End-to-End Implicit Object Pose Estimation.

To accurately estimate the 6D pose of objects, most methods employ a two-stage algorithm. While such two-stage algorithms achieve high accuracy, they are often slow. Additionally, many approaches utilize encoding-decoding to obtain the 6D pose, with many employing bilinear sampling for decoding. However, bilinear sampling tends to sacrifice the accuracy of precise features. In our research, we propose a novel solution that utilizes implicit representation as a bridge between discrete feature maps and continuous feature maps. We represent the feature map as a coordinate field, where each coordinate pair corresponds to a feature value. These feature values are then used to estimate feature maps of arbitrary scales, replacing upsampling for decoding. We apply the proposed implicit module to a bidirectional fusion feature pyramid network. Based on this implicit module, we propose three network branches: a class estimation branch, a bounding box estimation branch, and the final pose estimation branch. For this pose estimation branch, we propose a miniature dual-stream network, which estimates object surface features and complements the relationship between 2D and 3D. We represent the rotation component using the SVD (Singular Value Decomposition) representation method, resulting in a more accurate object pose. We achieved satisfactory experimental results on the widely used 6D pose estimation benchmark dataset Linemod. This innovative approach provides a more convenient solution for 6D object pose estimation.

Expectations about presence enhance the influence of content-specific expectations on low-level orientation judgements.

Will something appear and if so, what will it be? Perceptual expectations can concern both the presence and content of a stimulus. However, it is unclear how these different types of expectations interact with each other in biasing perception. Here, we tested how expectations about stimulus presence and content differently affect perceptual inference. Across separate online discovery (N = 110) and replication samples (N = 218), participants were asked to judge both the presence and content (orientation) of noisy grating stimuli. Crucially, preceding compound cues simultaneously and orthogonally predicted both whether a grating was likely to appear as well as what its orientation would be. Across both samples we found that content cues affected both discrimination and presence judgements directly, namely by biasing the orientation judgements in the expected direction and enhancing confidence in stimulus presence on congruent trials. In contrast, presence cues did not affect discrimination judgements directly. Instead, presence cues influenced discrimination judgements indirectly by enhancing the effect of the orientation cues when expecting a stimulus to be present. This was the case on trials where a stimulus was present, as well as on grating-absent trials. Further, presence cues directly affected confidence in stimulus presence. This suggests that presence expectations may act as a regulatory volume knob for the influence of content expectations. Further, modelling revealed higher sensitivity in distinguishing between grating presence and absence following absence cues than presence cues, demonstrating an asymmetry between gathering evidence in favour of stimulus presence and absence. Finally, evidence for overweighted expectations being associated with hallucination-like perception was inconclusive. In sum, our results provide nuance to popular predictive processing accounts of perception by showing that expectations of presence and content have distinct but interacting roles in shaping conscious perception.

Enhancing reading speed: the reading acceleration effect in Italian adult readers.

Introduction: Enhancing reading efficiency is of paramount importance in various academic, professional and clinical domains. Previous research, mostly from a single laboratory, has shown that externally imposed time constraints by means of text fading can enhance reading fluency in children and adults with varying reading abilities and in different languages. Methods: In the present study, we aimed at replicating and extending previous results in Italian readers. Three experiments (N = 90) were conducted: (i) to investigate the effects of continuous fading compared to character-wise fading, (ii) to investigate the influence of enlarged inter-letter spacing on reading acceleration outcomes, and (iii) to probe whether reading gains can be reliably observed off-line (after the acceleration) by comparing accelerated reading with an analog non-accelerated procedure. Results: Overall, results corroborate previous findings revealing that participants read 40% faster during the reading acceleration procedure, while maintaining the same accuracy levels. Continuous fading proved to be more effective than character-wise fading in enhancing reading speed, while larger inter-letter spacing did not significantly affect the reading speed gain. Albeit the non-clinical nature of our sample and its numerosity circumscribe the potential generalization, taking into account individual differences in the initial reading time, data suggests that reading acceleration leads to larger off-line speed increments with respect to non-accelerated reading. Discussion: Taken together, these findings offer valuable insights for the future application of reading acceleration procedures as part of multisession training programs for improving reading proficiency in a diverse range of clinical and non-clinical populations.

Representations of the relative proportions of body part width.

Despite our wealth of experience with our bodies, our perceptions of our body size are far from veridical. For example, when estimating the relative proportions of their body part lengths, using the hand as a metric, individuals tend to exhibit systematic distortions which vary across body parts. Whilst extensive research with healthy populations has focused on perceptions of body part length, less is known about perceptions of the width of individual body parts and the various components comprising these representations. Across four experiments, representations of the relative proportions of body part width were investigated for both the self and other, and when using both the hand, or a hand-sized stick as the metric. Overall, we found distortions in the perceived width of body parts; however, different patterns of distortions were observed across all experiments. Moreover, the variability across experiments appears not to be moderated by the type of metric used or individuals' posture at the time of estimation. Consequently, findings suggest that, unlike perceptions of body part length, assessed using an identical methodology, our representations of the width of the body parts measured in this task are not fixed and vary across individuals and context. We propose that, as stored width representations of these parts are not necessarily required for navigating our environments, these may not be maintained by our perceptual systems, and thus variable task performance reflects the engagement of idiosyncratic guessing strategies.

Light-Adapted Optoelectronic-Memristive Device for the Artificial Visual System.

With the development of artificial intelligence systems, it is necessary to develop optoelectronic devices with photoresponse and storage capacity to simulate human visual perception systems. The key to an artificial visual perception system is to integrate components with both sensing and storage capabilities of illumination information. Although module integration components have made useful progress, they still face challenges such as multispectral response and high energy consumption. Here, we developed a light-adapted optoelectronic-memristive device integrated by an organic photodetector and ferroelectric-based memristor to simulate human visual perception. ITO/P3HT:PC71BM/Au as the light sensor unit shows a high on/off ratio (Iph/Id) reaching ∼5 × 104 at 0 V. The memristor unit, consisting of ITO/CBI@P(VDF-TrFE)/Cu, has a RON/ROFF ratio window of ∼106 under 0.05 V read voltage and ultralow power consumption of ∼1 pW. Moreover, the artificial visual perception unit shows stable light-adapted memory windows under different wavelengths of irradiation light (400, 500, and 600 nm; they meet the spectral range of human visual recognition) and can clearly identify the target image ("T" shape) because of the apparent contrast, which results from the high ROFF/RON ratio values. These results provide a potential design strategy for the development of intelligent artificial vision systems.

Pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials in prosthetic vision and simulated visual reduction.

OBJECTIVE: To quantitatively evaluate visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in prosthetic vision and simulated visual reduction. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Four blind patients implanted with the Argus II retinal prosthesis and seven sighted controls participated. VEPs were recorded with pattern-reversal stimuli (2 cycles of a horizontal square wave grating, 0.1 cycle/degree) at 1.07 reversals per second (rps) for Argus II subjects and 3.37 rps for controls. Argus II patients had both eyes patched, viewing the pattern solely through their implant. Controls viewed the pattern monocularly, either with their best-corrected vision or with simulated visual reduction (field restriction, added blur or reduced display contrast). RESULTS: VEPs recorded in Argus II patients displayed a similar shape to normal VEPs when controls viewed the pattern without simulated visual reduction. In sighted controls, adding blur significantly delayed the P100 peak time by 8.7 ms, 95% CI (0.9, 16.6). Reducing stimulus contrast to 32% and 6% of full display contrast significantly decreased P100 amplitude to 55% (37%, 82%) and 20% (13%, 31%), respectively. Restriction on the field of view had no impact on either the amplitude or the peak latency of P100. CONCLUSION: The early visual cortex in retinal prosthesis users remains responsive to retinal input, showing a similar response profile to that of sighted controls. Pattern-reversal VEP offers valuable insights for objectively evaluating artificial vision therapy systems (AVTSs) when selecting, fitting and training implant users, but the uncertainties in the exact timing and location of electrode stimulation must be considered when interpreting the results.

Manipulating and measuring variation in deep neural network (DNN) representations of objects.

We explore how DNNs can be used to develop a computational understanding of individual differences in high-level visual cognition given their ability to generate rich meaningful object representations informed by their architecture, experience, and training protocols. As a first step to quantifying individual differences in DNN representations, we systematically explored the robustness of a variety of representational similarity measures: Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), Centered Kernel Alignment (CKA), and Projection-Weighted Canonical Correlation Analysis (PWCCA), with an eye to how these measures are used in cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, and vision science. To manipulate object representations, we next created a large set of models varying in random initial weights and random training image order, training image frequencies, training category frequencies, and model size and architecture and measured the representational variation caused by each manipulation. We examined both small (All-CNN-C) and commonly-used large (VGG and ResNet) DNN architectures. To provide a comparison for the magnitude of representational differences, we established a baseline based on the representational variation caused by image-augmentation techniques used to train those DNNs. We found that variation in model randomization and model size never exceeded baseline. By contrast, differences in training image frequency and training category frequencies caused representational variation that exceeded baseline, with training category frequency manipulations exceeding baseline earlier in the networks. These findings provide insights into the magnitude of representational variations that can be expected with a range of manipulations and provide a springboard for further exploration of systematic model variations aimed at modeling individual differences in high-level visual cognition.

Distinct Neural Plasticity Enhancing Visual Perception.

The developed human brain shows remarkable plasticity following perceptual learning, resulting in improved visual sensitivity. However, such improvements commonly require extensive stimuli exposure. Here we show that efficiently enhancing visual perception with minimal stimuli exposure recruits distinct neural mechanisms relative to standard repetition-based learning. Participants (n = 20, 12 women, 8 men) encoded a visual discrimination task, followed by brief memory reactivations of only five trials each performed on separate days, demonstrating improvements comparable with standard repetition-based learning (n = 20, 12 women, 8 men). Reactivation-induced learning engaged increased bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS) activity relative to repetition-based learning. Complementary evidence for differential learning processes was further provided by temporal-parietal resting functional connectivity changes, which correlated with behavioral improvements. The results suggest that efficiently enhancing visual perception with minimal stimuli exposure recruits distinct neural processes, engaging higher-order control and attentional resources while leading to similar perceptual gains. These unique brain mechanisms underlying improved perceptual learning efficiency may have important implications for daily life and in clinical conditions requiring relearning following brain damage.

The effect of shape on visual size perception.

The Delboeuf illusion occurs when two circles (test figures) of equal radius are placed side by side and surrounded by concentric circles (inducers) of varying radii, resulting in the test figure being misestimated depending on the size of the surrounding inducer. This study conducted three experiments to explore the impact of shape and the contour attraction and parallel attraction on the Delboeuf illusion for different shapes. In Experiment 1 (n = 64), the test figures remained as circles while the inducers varied in shape. Experiment 2 (n = 64) involved simultaneous changes in the shape of both the test figures and the inducers. Experiment 3 (n = 64) replicated Experiment 2, with the exception that the areas of the inducers were equal and the distances between the inducers and the test figures were also equal. We conclude that the shape of the inducer and the test figure had an impact on the visual size perception, and in the magnitude of the Delboeuf illusion, varied depending on contour attraction. Configurations with circles or shapes resembling circles exhibit contour attraction, while configurations with shapes possessing longer parallel lines shift toward parallel attraction, both attractions enhance the perceived magnitude of the Delboeuf illusion.

Bridging instrumental and visual perception with improved color difference equations: A multi-center study.

OBJECTIVES: This multicenter study aimed to evaluate visual-instrumental agreement of six color measurement devices and optimize three color difference equations using a dataset of visual color differences (∆V) from expert observers. METHODS: A total of 154 expert observers from 16 sites across 5 countries participated, providing visual scaling on 26 sample pairs of artificial teeth using magnitude estimation. Three color difference equations (ΔE*ab, ∆E00, and CAM16-UCS) were tested. Optimization of all three equations was performed using device-specific weights, and the standardized residual sum of squares (STRESS) index was used to evaluate visual-instrumental agreement. RESULTS: The ΔE*ab formula exhibited STRESS values from 18 to 40, with visual-instrumental agreement between 60 % and 82 %. The ∆E00 formula showed STRESS values from 26 to 32, representing visual-instrumental agreement of 68 % to 74 %. CAM16-UCS demonstrated STRESS values from 32 - 39, with visual-instrumental agreement between 61-68 %. Following optimization, STRESS values decreased for all three formulas, with ΔE' demonstrating average visual-instrumental agreement of 79 % and ∆E00 of 78 %. CAM16-UCS showed average visual-instrumental agreement of 76 % post optimization. SIGNIFICANCE: Optimization of color difference equations notably improved visual-instrumental agreement, overshadowing device performance. The optimzed ΔE' formula demonstrated the best overall performance combining computational simplicty with outstanding visual-instrumental agreement.

Dynamic predictive templates in perception.

Hallucinations are vivid and transient experiences of objects, such as images or sounds, that occur in the absence of a corresponding stimulus.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 To understand the neurocomputational mechanisms of hallucinations, cognitive neuroscience has focused on experiments that induce false alarms (FAs) in healthy participants,1,2,3,4,5,9 psychosis-prone individuals,1,3,4 and patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.5 FAs occur when participants make decisions about difficult-to-detect stimuli and indicate the presence of a signal that was, in fact, not presented. Since FAs are, at heart, reports, they must meet two criteria to serve as an experimental proxy for hallucinations: first, FAs should reflect perceptual states that are characterized by specific contents10,11,12 (criterion 1). Second, FAs should occur on a timescale compatible with the temporal dynamics of hallucinations13,14 (criterion 2). In this work, we combined a classification image approach15 with hidden Markov models16 to show that FAs can match the perceptual and temporal characteristics of hallucinations. We asked healthy human participants to discriminate visual stimuli from noise and found that FAs were more likely to occur during an internal mode of sensory processing, a minute-long state of the brain during which perception is strongly biased toward previous experiences17 (serial dependency). Our results suggest that hallucinations are driven by dynamic predictive templates that transform noise into transient, coherent, and meaningful perceptual experiences.

Size adaptation: Do you know it when you see it?

The visual system adapts to a wide range of visual features, from lower-level features like color and motion to higher-level features like causality and, perhaps, number. According to some, adaptation is a strictly perceptual phenomenon, such that the presence of adaptation licenses the claim that a feature is truly perceptual in nature. Given the theoretical importance of claims about adaptation, then, it is important to understand exactly when the visual system does and does not exhibit adaptation. Here, we take as a case study one specific kind of adaptation: visual adaptation to size. Supported by evidence from four experiments, we argue that, despite robust effects of size adaptation in the lab, (1) size adaptation effects are phenomenologically underwhelming (in some cases, hardly appreciable at all), (2) some effects of size adaptation appear contradictory, and difficult to explain given current theories of size adaptation, and (3) prior studies on size adaptation may have failed to isolate size as the adapted dimension. Ultimately, we argue that while there is evidence to license the claim that size adaptation is genuine, size adaptation is a puzzling and poorly understood phenomenon.

An Unavoidable Mind-Set Reversal: Consciousness in Vision Science.

In recent decades, the debate on consciousness has been conditioned by the idea of bottom-up emergence, which has influenced scientific research and raised a few obstacles to any attempt to bridge the explanatory gap. The analysis and explanation of vision conducted according to the accredited methodologies of scientific research in terms of physical stimuli, objectivity, methods, and explanation has encountered the resistance of subjective experience. Moreover, original Gestalt research into vision has generally been merged with cognitive neuroscience. Experimental phenomenology, building on the legacy of Gestalt psychology, has obtained new results in the fields of amodal contours and color stratifications, light perception, figurality, space, so-called perceptual illusions, and subjective space and time. Notwithstanding the outcomes and the impulse given to neuroscientific analyses, the research carried out around these phenomena has never directly confronted the issue of what it means to be conscious or, in other words, the nature of consciousness as self-referentiality. Research has tended to focus on the percept. Therefore, explaining the non-detachability of parts in subjective experience risks becoming a sort of impossible achievement, similar to that of Baron Munchausen, who succeeds in escaping unharmed from this quicksand by pulling himself out by his hair. This paper addresses how to analyze seeing as an undivided whole by discussing several basic dimensions of phenomenal consciousness on an experimental basis and suggesting an alternative way of escaping this quicksand. This mind-set reversal also sheds light on the organization and dependence relationships between phenomenology, psychophysics, and neuroscience.

Atypical local and global biological motion perception in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Perceiving biological motion (BM) is crucial for human survival and social interaction. Many studies have reported impaired BM perception in autism spectrum disorder, which is characterised by deficits in social interaction. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often exhibit similar difficulties in social interaction. However, few studies have investigated BM perception in children with ADHD. Here, we compared differences in the ability to process local kinematic and global configurational cues, two fundamental abilities of BM perception, between typically developing and ADHD children. We further investigated the relationship between BM perception and social interaction skills measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale and examined the contributions of latent factors (e.g. sex, age, attention, and intelligence) to BM perception. The results revealed that children with ADHD exhibited atypical BM perception. Local and global BM processing showed distinct features. Local BM processing ability was related to social interaction skills, whereas global BM processing ability significantly improved with age. Critically, general BM perception (i.e. both local and global BM processing) may be affected by sustained attentional ability in children with ADHD. This relationship was primarily mediated by reasoning intelligence. These findings elucidate atypical BM perception in ADHD and the latent factors related to BM perception. Moreover, this study provides new evidence that BM perception is a hallmark of social cognition and advances our understanding of the potential roles of local and global processing in BM perception and social cognitive disorders.