Role of Interaction in Enhancing the Epistemic Utility of 3D Mathematical Visualizations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liang, Hai-Ning; Sedig, Kamran

2010-01-01

Many epistemic activities, such as spatial reasoning, sense-making, problem solving, and learning, are information-based. In the context of epistemic activities involving mathematical information, learners often use interactive 3D mathematical visualizations (MVs). However, performing such activities is not always easy. Although it is generally…

Scalable Visual Analytics of Massive Textual Datasets

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Krishnan, Manoj Kumar; Bohn, Shawn J.; Cowley, Wendy E.

2007-04-01

This paper describes the first scalable implementation of text processing engine used in Visual Analytics tools. These tools aid information analysts in interacting with and understanding large textual information content through visual interfaces. By developing parallel implementation of the text processing engine, we enabled visual analytics tools to exploit cluster architectures and handle massive dataset. The paper describes key elements of our parallelization approach and demonstrates virtually linear scaling when processing multi-gigabyte data sets such as Pubmed. This approach enables interactive analysis of large datasets beyond capabilities of existing state-of-the art visual analytics tools.

Visual sensory networks and effective information transfer in animal groups.

PubMed

Strandburg-Peshkin, Ariana; Twomey, Colin R; Bode, Nikolai W F; Kao, Albert B; Katz, Yael; Ioannou, Christos C; Rosenthal, Sara B; Torney, Colin J; Wu, Hai Shan; Levin, Simon A; Couzin, Iain D

2013-09-09

Social transmission of information is vital for many group-living animals, allowing coordination of motion and effective response to complex environments. Revealing the interaction networks underlying information flow within these groups is a central challenge. Previous work has modeled interactions between individuals based directly on their relative spatial positions: each individual is considered to interact with all neighbors within a fixed distance (metric range), a fixed number of nearest neighbors (topological range), a 'shell' of near neighbors (Voronoi range), or some combination (Figure 1A). However, conclusive evidence to support these assumptions is lacking. Here, we employ a novel approach that considers individual movement decisions to be based explicitly on the sensory information available to the organism. In other words, we consider that while spatial relations do inform interactions between individuals, they do so indirectly, through individuals' detection of sensory cues. We reconstruct computationally the visual field of each individual throughout experiments designed to investigate information propagation within fish schools (golden shiners, Notemigonus crysoleucas). Explicitly considering visual sensing allows us to more accurately predict the propagation of behavioral change in these groups during leadership events. Furthermore, we find that structural properties of visual interaction networks differ markedly from those of metric and topological counterparts, suggesting that previous assumptions may not appropriately reflect information flow in animal groups. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interactive visualization of public health indicators to support policymaking: An exploratory study

PubMed Central

Zakkar, Moutasem; Sedig, Kamran

2017-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the use of interactive visualizations to represent data/information related to social determinants of health and public health indicators, and to investigate the benefits of such visualizations for health policymaking. Methods: The study developed a prototype for an online interactive visualization tool that represents the social determinants of health. The study participants explored and used the tool. The tool was evaluated using the informal user experience evaluation method. This method involves the prospective users of a tool to use and play with it and their feedback to be collected through interviews. Results: Using visualizations to represent and interact with health indicators has advantages over traditional representation techniques that do not allow users to interact with the information. Communicating healthcare indicators to policymakers is a complex task because of the complexity of the indicators, diversity of audiences, and different audience needs. This complexity can lead to information misinterpretation, which occurs when users of the health data ignore or do not know why, where, and how the data has been produced, or where and how it can be used. Conclusions: Public health policymaking is a complex process, and data is only one element among others needed in this complex process. Researchers and healthcare organizations should conduct a strategic evaluation to assess the usability of interactive visualizations and decision support tools before investing in these tools. Such evaluation should take into consideration the cost, ease of use, learnability, and efficiency of those tools, and the factors that influence policymaking. PMID:29026455

The Hype over Hyperbolic Browsers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Maryellen Mott

2002-01-01

Considers complaints about the usability in the human-computer interaction aspect of information retrieval and discusses information visualization, the Online Library of Information Visualization Environments, hyperbolic information structure, subject searching, real-world applications, relational databases and hyperbolic trees, and the future of…

Suggested Interactivity: Seeking Perceived Affordances for Information Visualization.

PubMed

Boy, Jeremy; Eveillard, Louis; Detienne, Françoise; Fekete, Jean-Daniel

2016-01-01

In this article, we investigate methods for suggesting the interactivity of online visualizations embedded with text. We first assess the need for such methods by conducting three initial experiments on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. We then present a design space for Suggested Interactivity (i. e., visual cues used as perceived affordances-SI), based on a survey of 382 HTML5 and visualization websites. Finally, we assess the effectiveness of three SI cues we designed for suggesting the interactivity of bar charts embedded with text. Our results show that only one cue (SI3) was successful in inciting participants to interact with the visualizations, and we hypothesize this is because this particular cue provided feedforward.

Add a picture for suspense: neural correlates of the interaction between language and visual information in the perception of fear.

PubMed

Willems, Roel M; Clevis, Krien; Hagoort, Peter

2011-09-01

We investigated how visual and linguistic information interact in the perception of emotion. We borrowed a phenomenon from film theory which states that presentation of an as such neutral visual scene intensifies the percept of fear or suspense induced by a different channel of information, such as language. Our main aim was to investigate how neutral visual scenes can enhance responses to fearful language content in parts of the brain involved in the perception of emotion. Healthy participants' brain activity was measured (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) while they read fearful and less fearful sentences presented with or without a neutral visual scene. The main idea is that the visual scenes intensify the fearful content of the language by subtly implying and concretizing what is described in the sentence. Activation levels in the right anterior temporal pole were selectively increased when a neutral visual scene was paired with a fearful sentence, compared to reading the sentence alone, as well as to reading of non-fearful sentences presented with the same neutral scene. We conclude that the right anterior temporal pole serves a binding function of emotional information across domains such as visual and linguistic information.

The interplay of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms in visual guidance during object naming.

PubMed

Coco, Moreno I; Malcolm, George L; Keller, Frank

2014-01-01

An ongoing issue in visual cognition concerns the roles played by low- and high-level information in guiding visual attention, with current research remaining inconclusive about the interaction between the two. In this study, we bring fresh evidence into this long-standing debate by investigating visual saliency and contextual congruency during object naming (Experiment 1), a task in which visual processing interacts with language processing. We then compare the results of this experiment to data of a memorization task using the same stimuli (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we find that both saliency and congruency influence visual and naming responses and interact with linguistic factors. In particular, incongruent objects are fixated later and less often than congruent ones. However, saliency is a significant predictor of object naming, with salient objects being named earlier in a trial. Furthermore, the saliency and congruency of a named object interact with the lexical frequency of the associated word and mediate the time-course of fixations at naming. In Experiment 2, we find a similar overall pattern in the eye-movement responses, but only the congruency of the target is a significant predictor, with incongruent targets fixated less often than congruent targets. Crucially, this finding contrasts with claims in the literature that incongruent objects are more informative than congruent objects by deviating from scene context and hence need a longer processing. Overall, this study suggests that different sources of information are interactively used to guide visual attention on the targets to be named and raises new questions for existing theories of visual attention.

Natural language query system design for interactive information storage and retrieval systems. Presentation visuals. M.S. Thesis Final Report, 1 Jul. 1985 - 31 Dec. 1987

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dominick, Wayne D. (Editor); Liu, I-Hsiung

1985-01-01

This Working Paper Series entry represents a collection of presentation visuals associated with the companion report entitled Natural Language Query System Design for Interactive Information Storage and Retrieval Systems, USL/DBMS NASA/RECON Working Paper Series report number DBMS.NASA/RECON-17.

Effects of visual and verbal interaction on unintentional interpersonal coordination.

PubMed

Richardson, Michael J; Marsh, Kerry L; Schmidt, R C

2005-02-01

Previous research has demonstrated that people's movements can become unintentionally coordinated during interpersonal interaction. The current study sought to uncover the degree to which visual and verbal (conversation) interaction constrains and organizes the rhythmic limb movements of coactors. Two experiments were conducted in which pairs of participants completed an interpersonal puzzle task while swinging handheld pendulums with instructions that minimized intentional coordination but facilitated either visual or verbal interaction. Cross-spectral analysis revealed a higher degree of coordination for conditions in which the pairs were visually coupled. In contrast, verbal interaction alone was not found to provide a sufficient medium for unintentional coordination to occur, nor did it enhance the unintentional coordination that emerged during visual interaction. The results raise questions concerning differences between visual and verbal informational linkages during interaction and how these differences may affect interpersonal movement production and its coordination.

Interactive Model-Centric Systems Engineering (IMCSE) Phase 5

DTIC Science & Technology

2018-02-28

Conducting Program Team Launches ................................................................................................. 12 Informing Policy...research advances knowledge relevant to human interaction with models and model-generated information . Figure 1 highlights several questions the...stakeholders interact using models and model generated information ; facets of human interaction with visualizations and large data sets; and underlying

Rethinking Visual Analytics for Streaming Data Applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Crouser, R. Jordan; Franklin, Lyndsey; Cook, Kris

In the age of data science, the use of interactive information visualization techniques has become increasingly ubiquitous. From online scientific journals to the New York Times graphics desk, the utility of interactive visualization for both storytelling and analysis has become ever more apparent. As these techniques have become more readily accessible, the appeal of combining interactive visualization with computational analysis continues to grow. Arising out of a need for scalable, human-driven analysis, primary objective of visual analytics systems is to capitalize on the complementary strengths of human and machine analysis, using interactive visualization as a medium for communication between themore » two. These systems leverage developments from the fields of information visualization, computer graphics, machine learning, and human-computer interaction to support insight generation in areas where purely computational analyses fall short. Over the past decade, visual analytics systems have generated remarkable advances in many historically challenging analytical contexts. These include areas such as modeling political systems [Crouser et al. 2012], detecting financial fraud [Chang et al. 2008], and cybersecurity [Harrison et al. 2012]. In each of these contexts, domain expertise and human intuition is a necessary component of the analysis. This intuition is essential to building trust in the analytical products, as well as supporting the translation of evidence into actionable insight. In addition, each of these examples also highlights the need for scalable analysis. In each case, it is infeasible for a human analyst to manually assess the raw information unaided, and the communication overhead to divide the task between a large number of analysts makes simple parallelism intractable. Regardless of the domain, visual analytics tools strive to optimize the allocation of human analytical resources, and to streamline the sensemaking process on data that is massive, complex, incomplete, and uncertain in scenarios requiring human judgment.« less

Research on the Design of Visually Impaired Interactive Accessibility in Large Urban Public Transport System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Weiru

2017-12-01

In medieval times, due to people’s reliance on belief, public space of Christianity came into being. With the rise of secularization, religion gradually turned into private belief, and accordingly public space returned to private space. In the 21st century, due to people’s reliance on intelligent devices, information-interactive public space emerges, and as information interaction is constantly constraining the visually impaired, public space regressed to the exclusive space of limited people[1]. Modernity is marked by technical rationality, but an ensuing basic problem lies in the separation between human action, ethics and public space. When technology fails to overcome obstacles for a particular group, the gap between the burgeoning intelligent phenomena and the increasing ratio of visually impaired is also expanding, ultimately resulting in a growing number of “blind spots” in information-interactive space. Technological innovation not only promotes the development of the information industry, but also promotes the rapid development of the transportation industry. Traffic patterns are diversifying and diverging nowadays, but it’s a fatal blow for people with visually disabilities, Because they still can only experience the most traditional mode of transportation, sometimes even not go out. How to guarantee their interactive accessibility in large urban public transport system right, currently, is a very important research direction.

SPV: a JavaScript Signaling Pathway Visualizer.

PubMed

Calderone, Alberto; Cesareni, Gianni

2018-03-24

The visualization of molecular interactions annotated in web resources is useful to offer to users such information in a clear intuitive layout. These interactions are frequently represented as binary interactions that are laid out in free space where, different entities, cellular compartments and interaction types are hardly distinguishable. SPV (Signaling Pathway Visualizer) is a free open source JavaScript library which offers a series of pre-defined elements, compartments and interaction types meant to facilitate the representation of signaling pathways consisting of causal interactions without neglecting simple protein-protein interaction networks. freely available under Apache version 2 license; Source code: https://github.com/Sinnefa/SPV_Signaling_Pathway_Visualizer_v1.0. Language: JavaScript; Web technology: Scalable Vector Graphics; Libraries: D3.js. sinnefa@gmail.com.

Novel Web-based Education Platforms for Information Communication utilizing Gamification, Virtual and Immersive Reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.

2015-12-01

Recent developments in internet technologies make it possible to manage and visualize large data on the web. Novel visualization techniques and interactive user interfaces allow users to create realistic environments, and interact with data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. This presentation showcase information communication interfaces, games, and virtual and immersive reality applications for supporting teaching and learning of concepts in atmospheric and hydrological sciences. The information communication platforms utilizes latest web technologies and allow accessing and visualizing large scale data on the web. The simulation system is a web-based 3D interactive learning environment for teaching hydrological and atmospheric processes and concepts. The simulation systems provides a visually striking platform with realistic terrain and weather information, and water simulation. The web-based simulation system provides an environment for students to learn about the earth science processes, and effects of development and human activity on the terrain. Users can access the system in three visualization modes including virtual reality, augmented reality, and immersive reality using heads-up display. The system provides various scenarios customized to fit the age and education level of various users.

Differential effects of non-informative vision and visual interference on haptic spatial processing

PubMed Central

van Rheede, Joram J.; Postma, Albert; Kappers, Astrid M. L.

2008-01-01

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of non-informative vision and visual interference upon haptic spatial processing, which supposedly derives from an interaction between an allocentric and egocentric reference frame. To this end, a haptic parallelity task served as baseline to determine the participant-dependent biasing influence of the egocentric reference frame. As expected, large systematic participant-dependent deviations from veridicality were observed. In the second experiment we probed the effect of non-informative vision on the egocentric bias. Moreover, orienting mechanisms (gazing directions) were studied with respect to the presentation of haptic information in a specific hemispace. Non-informative vision proved to have a beneficial effect on haptic spatial processing. No effect of gazing direction or hemispace was observed. In the third experiment we investigated the effect of simultaneously presented interfering visual information on the haptic bias. Interfering visual information parametrically influenced haptic performance. The interplay of reference frames that subserves haptic spatial processing was found to be related to both the effects of non-informative vision and visual interference. These results suggest that spatial representations are influenced by direct cross-modal interactions; inter-participant differences in the haptic modality resulted in differential effects of the visual modality. PMID:18553074

Add a picture for suspense: neural correlates of the interaction between language and visual information in the perception of fear

PubMed Central

Clevis, Krien; Hagoort, Peter

2011-01-01

We investigated how visual and linguistic information interact in the perception of emotion. We borrowed a phenomenon from film theory which states that presentation of an as such neutral visual scene intensifies the percept of fear or suspense induced by a different channel of information, such as language. Our main aim was to investigate how neutral visual scenes can enhance responses to fearful language content in parts of the brain involved in the perception of emotion. Healthy participants’ brain activity was measured (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) while they read fearful and less fearful sentences presented with or without a neutral visual scene. The main idea is that the visual scenes intensify the fearful content of the language by subtly implying and concretizing what is described in the sentence. Activation levels in the right anterior temporal pole were selectively increased when a neutral visual scene was paired with a fearful sentence, compared to reading the sentence alone, as well as to reading of non-fearful sentences presented with the same neutral scene. We conclude that the right anterior temporal pole serves a binding function of emotional information across domains such as visual and linguistic information. PMID:20530540

Innovative Visualization Techniques applied to a Flood Scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Falcão, António; Ho, Quan; Lopes, Pedro; Malamud, Bruce D.; Ribeiro, Rita; Jern, Mikael

2013-04-01

The large and ever-increasing amounts of multi-dimensional, time-varying and geospatial digital information from multiple sources represent a major challenge for today's analysts. We present a set of visualization techniques that can be used for the interactive analysis of geo-referenced and time sampled data sets, providing an integrated mechanism and that aids the user to collaboratively explore, present and communicate visually complex and dynamic data. Here we present these concepts in the context of a 4 hour flood scenario from Lisbon in 2010, with data that includes measures of water column (flood height) every 10 minutes at a 4.5 m x 4.5 m resolution, topography, building damage, building information, and online base maps. Techniques we use include web-based linked views, multiple charts, map layers and storytelling. We explain two of these in more detail that are not currently in common use for visualization of data: storytelling and web-based linked views. Visual storytelling is a method for providing a guided but interactive process of visualizing data, allowing more engaging data exploration through interactive web-enabled visualizations. Within storytelling, a snapshot mechanism helps the author of a story to highlight data views of particular interest and subsequently share or guide others within the data analysis process. This allows a particular person to select relevant attributes for a snapshot, such as highlighted regions for comparisons, time step, class values for colour legend, etc. and provide a snapshot of the current application state, which can then be provided as a hyperlink and recreated by someone else. Since data can be embedded within this snapshot, it is possible to interactively visualize and manipulate it. The second technique, web-based linked views, includes multiple windows which interactively respond to the user selections, so that when selecting an object and changing it one window, it will automatically update in all the other windows. These concepts can be part of a collaborative platform, where multiple people share and work together on the data, via online access, which also allows its remote usage from a mobile platform. Storytelling augments analysis and decision-making capabilities allowing to assimilate complex situations and reach informed decisions, in addition to helping the public visualize information. In our visualization scenario, developed in the context of the VA-4D project for the European Space Agency (see http://www.ca3-uninova.org/project_va4d), we make use of the GAV (GeoAnalytics Visualization) framework, a web-oriented visual analytics application based on multiple interactive views. The final visualization that we produce includes multiple interactive views, including a dynamic multi-layer map surrounded by other visualizations such as bar charts, time graphs and scatter plots. The map provides flood and building information, on top of a base city map (street maps and/or satellite imagery provided by online map services such as Google Maps, Bing Maps etc.). Damage over time for selected buildings, damage for all buildings at a chosen time period, correlation between damage and water depth can be analysed in the other views. This interactive web-based visualization that incorporates the ideas of storytelling, web-based linked views, and other visualization techniques, for a 4 hour flood event in Lisbon in 2010, can be found online at http://www.ncomva.se/flash/projects/esa/flooding/.

Protein-Protein Interaction Network and Gene Ontology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Yunkyu; Kim, Seok; Yi, Gwan-Su; Park, Jinah

Evolution of computer technologies makes it possible to access a large amount and various kinds of biological data via internet such as DNA sequences, proteomics data and information discovered about them. It is expected that the combination of various data could help researchers find further knowledge about them. Roles of a visualization system are to invoke human abilities to integrate information and to recognize certain patterns in the data. Thus, when the various kinds of data are examined and analyzed manually, an effective visualization system is an essential part. One instance of these integrated visualizations can be combination of protein-protein interaction (PPI) data and Gene Ontology (GO) which could help enhance the analysis of PPI network. We introduce a simple but comprehensive visualization system that integrates GO and PPI data where GO and PPI graphs are visualized side-by-side and supports quick reference functions between them. Furthermore, the proposed system provides several interactive visualization methods for efficiently analyzing the PPI network and GO directedacyclic- graph such as context-based browsing and common ancestors finding.

Visual Analytics in Public Safety: Example Capabilities for Example Government Agencies

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-10-01

is not limited to: the Police Records Information Management Environment for British Columbia (PRIME-BC), the Police Reporting and Occurrence System...and filtering for rapid identification of relevant documents - Graphical environment for visual evidence marshaling - Interactive linking and...analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces and integration with computational analytics. Indeed, a wide variety of technologies

The Role of Global and Local Visual Information during Gaze-Cued Orienting of Attention.

PubMed

Munsters, Nicolette M; van den Boomen, Carlijn; Hooge, Ignace T C; Kemner, Chantal

2016-01-01

Gaze direction is an important social communication tool. Global and local visual information are known to play specific roles in processing socially relevant information from a face. The current study investigated whether global visual information has a primary role during gaze-cued orienting of attention and, as such, may influence quality of interaction. Adults performed a gaze-cueing task in which a centrally presented face cued (valid or invalid) the location of a peripheral target through a gaze shift. We measured brain activity (electroencephalography) towards the cue and target and behavioral responses (manual and saccadic reaction times) towards the target. The faces contained global (i.e. lower spatial frequencies), local (i.e. higher spatial frequencies), or a selection of both global and local (i.e. mid-band spatial frequencies) visual information. We found a gaze cue-validity effect (i.e. valid versus invalid), but no interaction effects with spatial frequency content. Furthermore, behavioral responses towards the target were in all cue conditions slower when lower spatial frequencies were not present in the gaze cue. These results suggest that whereas gaze-cued orienting of attention can be driven by both global and local visual information, global visual information determines the speed of behavioral responses towards other entities appearing in the surrounding of gaze cue stimuli.

The contribution of visual and vestibular information to spatial orientation by 6- to 14-month-old infants and adults.

PubMed

Bremner, J Gavin; Hatton, Fran; Foster, Kirsty A; Mason, Uschi

2011-09-01

Although there is much research on infants' ability to orient in space, little is known regarding the information they use to do so. This research uses a rotating room to evaluate the relative contribution of visual and vestibular information to location of a target following bodily rotation. Adults responded precisely on the basis of visual flow information. Seven-month-olds responded mostly on the basis of visual flow, whereas 9-month-olds responded mostly on the basis of vestibular information, and 12-month-olds responded mostly on the basis of visual information. Unlike adults, infants of all ages showed partial influence by both modalities. Additionally, 7-month-olds were capable of using vestibular information when there was no visual information for movement or stability, and 9-month-olds still relied on vestibular information when visual information was enhanced. These results are discussed in the context of neuroscientific evidence regarding visual-vestibular interaction, and in relation to possible changes in reliance on visual and vestibular information following acquisition of locomotion. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Explore the virtual side of earth science

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

1998-01-01

Scientists have always struggled to find an appropriate technology that could represent three-dimensional (3-D) data, facilitate dynamic analysis, and encourage on-the-fly interactivity. In the recent past, scientific visualization has increased the scientist's ability to visualize information, but it has not provided the interactive environment necessary for rapidly changing the model or for viewing the model in ways not predetermined by the visualization specialist. Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML 2.0) is a new environment for visualizing 3-D information spaces and is accessible through the Internet with current browser technologies. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are using VRML as a scientific visualization tool to help convey complex scientific concepts to various audiences. Kevin W. Laurent, computer scientist, and Maura J. Hogan, technical information specialist, have created a collection of VRML models available through the Internet at Virtual Earth Science (virtual.er.usgs.gov).

Learner-Information Interaction: A Macro-Level Framework Characterizing Visual Cognitive Tools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sedig, Kamran; Liang, Hai-Ning

2008-01-01

Visual cognitive tools (VCTs) are external mental aids that maintain and display visual representations (VRs) of information (i.e., structures, objects, concepts, ideas, and problems). VCTs allow learners to operate upon the VRs to perform epistemic (i.e., reasoning and knowledge-based) activities. In VCTs, the mechanism by which learners operate…

VisGets: coordinated visualizations for web-based information exploration and discovery.

PubMed

Dörk, Marian; Carpendale, Sheelagh; Collins, Christopher; Williamson, Carey

2008-01-01

In common Web-based search interfaces, it can be difficult to formulate queries that simultaneously combine temporal, spatial, and topical data filters. We investigate how coordinated visualizations can enhance search and exploration of information on the World Wide Web by easing the formulation of these types of queries. Drawing from visual information seeking and exploratory search, we introduce VisGets--interactive query visualizations of Web-based information that operate with online information within a Web browser. VisGets provide the information seeker with visual overviews of Web resources and offer a way to visually filter the data. Our goal is to facilitate the construction of dynamic search queries that combine filters from more than one data dimension. We present a prototype information exploration system featuring three linked VisGets (temporal, spatial, and topical), and used it to visually explore news items from online RSS feeds.

Interaction Junk: User Interaction-Based Evaluation of Visual Analytic Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Endert, Alexander; North, Chris

2012-10-14

With the growing need for visualization to aid users in understanding large, complex datasets, the ability for users to interact and explore these datasets is critical. As visual analytic systems have advanced to leverage powerful computational models and data analytics capabilities, the modes by which users engage and interact with the information are limited. Often, users are taxed with directly manipulating parameters of these models through traditional GUIs (e.g., using sliders to directly manipulate the value of a parameter). However, the purpose of user interaction in visual analytic systems is to enable visual data exploration – where users can focusmore » on their task, as opposed to the tool or system. As a result, users can engage freely in data exploration and decision-making, for the purpose of gaining insight. In this position paper, we discuss how evaluating visual analytic systems can be approached through user interaction analysis, where the goal is to minimize the cognitive translation between the visual metaphor and the mode of interaction (i.e., reducing the “Interactionjunk”). We motivate this concept through a discussion of traditional GUIs used in visual analytics for direct manipulation of model parameters, and the importance of designing interactions the support visual data exploration.« less

Interactive Visualization of Large-Scale Hydrological Data using Emerging Technologies in Web Systems and Parallel Programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.

2013-12-01

As geoscientists are confronted with increasingly massive datasets from environmental observations to simulations, one of the biggest challenges is having the right tools to gain scientific insight from the data and communicate the understanding to stakeholders. Recent developments in web technologies make it easy to manage, visualize and share large data sets with general public. Novel visualization techniques and dynamic user interfaces allow users to interact with data, and modify the parameters to create custom views of the data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. This requires developing new data models and intelligent knowledge discovery techniques to explore and extract information from complex computational simulations or large data repositories. Scientific visualization will be an increasingly important component to build comprehensive environmental information platforms. This presentation provides an overview of the trends and challenges in the field of scientific visualization, and demonstrates information visualization and communication tools developed within the light of these challenges.

Interactive Exploration of Cosmological Dark-Matter Simulation Data.

PubMed

Scherzinger, Aaron; Brix, Tobias; Drees, Dominik; Volker, Andreas; Radkov, Kiril; Santalidis, Niko; Fieguth, Alexander; Hinrichs, Klaus H

2017-01-01

The winning entry of the 2015 IEEE Scientific Visualization Contest, this article describes a visualization tool for cosmological data resulting from dark-matter simulations. The proposed system helps users explore all aspects of the data at once and receive more detailed information about structures of interest at any time. Moreover, novel methods for visualizing and interactively exploring dark-matter halo substructures are proposed.

Information-Theoretic Metrics for Visualizing Gene-Environment Interactions

PubMed Central

Chanda, Pritam ; Zhang, Aidong ; Brazeau, Daniel ; Sucheston, Lara ; Freudenheim, Jo L. ; Ambrosone, Christine ; Ramanathan, Murali 

2007-01-01

The purpose of our work was to develop heuristics for visualizing and interpreting gene-environment interactions (GEIs) and to assess the dependence of candidate visualization metrics on biological and study-design factors. Two information-theoretic metrics, the k-way interaction information (KWII) and the total correlation information (TCI), were investigated. The effectiveness of the KWII and TCI to detect GEIs in a diverse range of simulated data sets and a Crohn disease data set was assessed. The sensitivity of the KWII and TCI spectra to biological and study-design variables was determined. Head-to-head comparisons with the relevance-chain, multifactor dimensionality reduction, and the pedigree disequilibrium test (PDT) methods were obtained. The KWII and TCI spectra, which are graphical summaries of the KWII and TCI for each subset of environmental and genotype variables, were found to detect each known GEI in the simulated data sets. The patterns in the KWII and TCI spectra were informative for factors such as case-control misassignment, locus heterogeneity, allele frequencies, and linkage disequilibrium. The KWII and TCI spectra were found to have excellent sensitivity for identifying the key disease-associated genetic variations in the Crohn disease data set. In head-to-head comparisons with the relevance-chain, multifactor dimensionality reduction, and PDT methods, the results from visual interpretation of the KWII and TCI spectra performed satisfactorily. The KWII and TCI are promising metrics for visualizing GEIs. They are capable of detecting interactions among numerous single-nucleotide polymorphisms and environmental variables for a diverse range of GEI models. PMID:17924337

Behavioral evidence for inter-hemispheric cooperation during a lexical decision task: a divided visual field experiment.

PubMed

Perrone-Bertolotti, Marcela; Lemonnier, Sophie; Baciu, Monica

2013-01-01

HIGHLIGHTSThe redundant bilateral visual presentation of verbal stimuli decreases asymmetry and increases the cooperation between the two hemispheres.The increased cooperation between the hemispheres is related to semantic information during lexical processing.The inter-hemispheric interaction is represented by both inhibition and cooperation. This study explores inter-hemispheric interaction (IHI) during a lexical decision task by using a behavioral approach, the bilateral presentation of stimuli within a divided visual field experiment. Previous studies have shown that compared to unilateral presentation, the bilateral redundant (BR) presentation decreases the inter-hemispheric asymmetry and facilitates the cooperation between hemispheres. However, it is still poorly understood which type of information facilitates this cooperation. In the present study, verbal stimuli were presented unilaterally (left or right visual hemi-field successively) and bilaterally (left and right visual hemi-field simultaneously). Moreover, during the bilateral presentation of stimuli, we manipulated the relationship between target and distractors in order to specify the type of information which modulates the IHI. Thus, three types of information were manipulated: perceptual, semantic, and decisional, respectively named pre-lexical, lexical and post-lexical processing. Our results revealed left hemisphere (LH) lateralization during the lexical decision task. In terms of inter-hemisphere interaction, the perceptual and decision-making information increased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting the inhibition of one hemisphere upon the other. In contrast, semantic information decreased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting cooperation between the hemispheres. We discussed our results according to current models of IHI and concluded that cerebral hemispheres interact and communicate according to various excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms, all which depend on specific processes and various levels of word processing.

Behavioral evidence for inter-hemispheric cooperation during a lexical decision task: a divided visual field experiment

PubMed Central

Perrone-Bertolotti, Marcela; Lemonnier, Sophie; Baciu, Monica

2013-01-01

HIGHLIGHTS The redundant bilateral visual presentation of verbal stimuli decreases asymmetry and increases the cooperation between the two hemispheres.The increased cooperation between the hemispheres is related to semantic information during lexical processing.The inter-hemispheric interaction is represented by both inhibition and cooperation. This study explores inter-hemispheric interaction (IHI) during a lexical decision task by using a behavioral approach, the bilateral presentation of stimuli within a divided visual field experiment. Previous studies have shown that compared to unilateral presentation, the bilateral redundant (BR) presentation decreases the inter-hemispheric asymmetry and facilitates the cooperation between hemispheres. However, it is still poorly understood which type of information facilitates this cooperation. In the present study, verbal stimuli were presented unilaterally (left or right visual hemi-field successively) and bilaterally (left and right visual hemi-field simultaneously). Moreover, during the bilateral presentation of stimuli, we manipulated the relationship between target and distractors in order to specify the type of information which modulates the IHI. Thus, three types of information were manipulated: perceptual, semantic, and decisional, respectively named pre-lexical, lexical and post-lexical processing. Our results revealed left hemisphere (LH) lateralization during the lexical decision task. In terms of inter-hemisphere interaction, the perceptual and decision-making information increased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting the inhibition of one hemisphere upon the other. In contrast, semantic information decreased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting cooperation between the hemispheres. We discussed our results according to current models of IHI and concluded that cerebral hemispheres interact and communicate according to various excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms, all which depend on specific processes and various levels of word processing. PMID:23818879

Inferring Interaction Force from Visual Information without Using Physical Force Sensors.

PubMed

Hwang, Wonjun; Lim, Soo-Chul

2017-10-26

In this paper, we present an interaction force estimation method that uses visual information rather than that of a force sensor. Specifically, we propose a novel deep learning-based method utilizing only sequential images for estimating the interaction force against a target object, where the shape of the object is changed by an external force. The force applied to the target can be estimated by means of the visual shape changes. However, the shape differences in the images are not very clear. To address this problem, we formulate a recurrent neural network-based deep model with fully-connected layers, which models complex temporal dynamics from the visual representations. Extensive evaluations show that the proposed learning models successfully estimate the interaction forces using only the corresponding sequential images, in particular in the case of three objects made of different materials, a sponge, a PET bottle, a human arm, and a tube. The forces predicted by the proposed method are very similar to those measured by force sensors.

The influence of selective attention to auditory and visual speech on the integration of audiovisual speech information.

PubMed

Buchan, Julie N; Munhall, Kevin G

2011-01-01

Conflicting visual speech information can influence the perception of acoustic speech, causing an illusory percept of a sound not present in the actual acoustic speech (the McGurk effect). We examined whether participants can voluntarily selectively attend to either the auditory or visual modality by instructing participants to pay attention to the information in one modality and to ignore competing information from the other modality. We also examined how performance under these instructions was affected by weakening the influence of the visual information by manipulating the temporal offset between the audio and video channels (experiment 1), and the spatial frequency information present in the video (experiment 2). Gaze behaviour was also monitored to examine whether attentional instructions influenced the gathering of visual information. While task instructions did have an influence on the observed integration of auditory and visual speech information, participants were unable to completely ignore conflicting information, particularly information from the visual stream. Manipulating temporal offset had a more pronounced interaction with task instructions than manipulating the amount of visual information. Participants' gaze behaviour suggests that the attended modality influences the gathering of visual information in audiovisual speech perception.

Speech comprehension aided by multiple modalities: behavioural and neural interactions

PubMed Central

McGettigan, Carolyn; Faulkner, Andrew; Altarelli, Irene; Obleser, Jonas; Baverstock, Harriet; Scott, Sophie K.

2014-01-01

Speech comprehension is a complex human skill, the performance of which requires the perceiver to combine information from several sources – e.g. voice, face, gesture, linguistic context – to achieve an intelligible and interpretable percept. We describe a functional imaging investigation of how auditory, visual and linguistic information interact to facilitate comprehension. Our specific aims were to investigate the neural responses to these different information sources, alone and in interaction, and further to use behavioural speech comprehension scores to address sites of intelligibility-related activation in multifactorial speech comprehension. In fMRI, participants passively watched videos of spoken sentences, in which we varied Auditory Clarity (with noise-vocoding), Visual Clarity (with Gaussian blurring) and Linguistic Predictability. Main effects of enhanced signal with increased auditory and visual clarity were observed in overlapping regions of posterior STS. Two-way interactions of the factors (auditory × visual, auditory × predictability) in the neural data were observed outside temporal cortex, where positive signal change in response to clearer facial information and greater semantic predictability was greatest at intermediate levels of auditory clarity. Overall changes in stimulus intelligibility by condition (as determined using an independent behavioural experiment) were reflected in the neural data by increased activation predominantly in bilateral dorsolateral temporal cortex, as well as inferior frontal cortex and left fusiform gyrus. Specific investigation of intelligibility changes at intermediate auditory clarity revealed a set of regions, including posterior STS and fusiform gyrus, showing enhanced responses to both visual and linguistic information. Finally, an individual differences analysis showed that greater comprehension performance in the scanning participants (measured in a post-scan behavioural test) were associated with increased activation in left inferior frontal gyrus and left posterior STS. The current multimodal speech comprehension paradigm demonstrates recruitment of a wide comprehension network in the brain, in which posterior STS and fusiform gyrus form sites for convergence of auditory, visual and linguistic information, while left-dominant sites in temporal and frontal cortex support successful comprehension. PMID:22266262

Speech comprehension aided by multiple modalities: behavioural and neural interactions.

PubMed

McGettigan, Carolyn; Faulkner, Andrew; Altarelli, Irene; Obleser, Jonas; Baverstock, Harriet; Scott, Sophie K

2012-04-01

Speech comprehension is a complex human skill, the performance of which requires the perceiver to combine information from several sources - e.g. voice, face, gesture, linguistic context - to achieve an intelligible and interpretable percept. We describe a functional imaging investigation of how auditory, visual and linguistic information interact to facilitate comprehension. Our specific aims were to investigate the neural responses to these different information sources, alone and in interaction, and further to use behavioural speech comprehension scores to address sites of intelligibility-related activation in multifactorial speech comprehension. In fMRI, participants passively watched videos of spoken sentences, in which we varied Auditory Clarity (with noise-vocoding), Visual Clarity (with Gaussian blurring) and Linguistic Predictability. Main effects of enhanced signal with increased auditory and visual clarity were observed in overlapping regions of posterior STS. Two-way interactions of the factors (auditory × visual, auditory × predictability) in the neural data were observed outside temporal cortex, where positive signal change in response to clearer facial information and greater semantic predictability was greatest at intermediate levels of auditory clarity. Overall changes in stimulus intelligibility by condition (as determined using an independent behavioural experiment) were reflected in the neural data by increased activation predominantly in bilateral dorsolateral temporal cortex, as well as inferior frontal cortex and left fusiform gyrus. Specific investigation of intelligibility changes at intermediate auditory clarity revealed a set of regions, including posterior STS and fusiform gyrus, showing enhanced responses to both visual and linguistic information. Finally, an individual differences analysis showed that greater comprehension performance in the scanning participants (measured in a post-scan behavioural test) were associated with increased activation in left inferior frontal gyrus and left posterior STS. The current multimodal speech comprehension paradigm demonstrates recruitment of a wide comprehension network in the brain, in which posterior STS and fusiform gyrus form sites for convergence of auditory, visual and linguistic information, while left-dominant sites in temporal and frontal cortex support successful comprehension. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Posterior Parietal Cortex Drives Inferotemporal Activations During Three-Dimensional Object Vision.

PubMed

Van Dromme, Ilse C; Premereur, Elsie; Verhoef, Bram-Ernst; Vanduffel, Wim; Janssen, Peter

2016-04-01

The primate visual system consists of a ventral stream, specialized for object recognition, and a dorsal visual stream, which is crucial for spatial vision and actions. However, little is known about the interactions and information flow between these two streams. We investigated these interactions within the network processing three-dimensional (3D) object information, comprising both the dorsal and ventral stream. Reversible inactivation of the macaque caudal intraparietal area (CIP) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reduced fMRI activations in posterior parietal cortex in the dorsal stream and, surprisingly, also in the inferotemporal cortex (ITC) in the ventral visual stream. Moreover, CIP inactivation caused a perceptual deficit in a depth-structure categorization task. CIP-microstimulation during fMRI further suggests that CIP projects via posterior parietal areas to the ITC in the ventral stream. To our knowledge, these results provide the first causal evidence for the flow of visual 3D information from the dorsal stream to the ventral stream, and identify CIP as a key area for depth-structure processing. Thus, combining reversible inactivation and electrical microstimulation during fMRI provides a detailed view of the functional interactions between the two visual processing streams.

Posterior Parietal Cortex Drives Inferotemporal Activations During Three-Dimensional Object Vision

PubMed Central

Van Dromme, Ilse C.; Premereur, Elsie; Verhoef, Bram-Ernst; Vanduffel, Wim; Janssen, Peter

2016-01-01

The primate visual system consists of a ventral stream, specialized for object recognition, and a dorsal visual stream, which is crucial for spatial vision and actions. However, little is known about the interactions and information flow between these two streams. We investigated these interactions within the network processing three-dimensional (3D) object information, comprising both the dorsal and ventral stream. Reversible inactivation of the macaque caudal intraparietal area (CIP) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reduced fMRI activations in posterior parietal cortex in the dorsal stream and, surprisingly, also in the inferotemporal cortex (ITC) in the ventral visual stream. Moreover, CIP inactivation caused a perceptual deficit in a depth-structure categorization task. CIP-microstimulation during fMRI further suggests that CIP projects via posterior parietal areas to the ITC in the ventral stream. To our knowledge, these results provide the first causal evidence for the flow of visual 3D information from the dorsal stream to the ventral stream, and identify CIP as a key area for depth-structure processing. Thus, combining reversible inactivation and electrical microstimulation during fMRI provides a detailed view of the functional interactions between the two visual processing streams. PMID:27082854

Olfactory discrimination: when vision matters?

PubMed

Demattè, M Luisa; Sanabria, Daniel; Spence, Charles

2009-02-01

Many previous studies have attempted to investigate the effect of visual cues on olfactory perception in humans. The majority of this research has only looked at the modulatory effect of color, which has typically been explained in terms of multisensory perceptual interactions. However, such crossmodal effects may equally well relate to interactions taking place at a higher level of information processing as well. In fact, it is well-known that semantic knowledge can have a substantial effect on people's olfactory perception. In the present study, we therefore investigated the influence of visual cues, consisting of color patches and/or shapes, on people's olfactory discrimination performance. Participants had to make speeded odor discrimination responses (lemon vs. strawberry) while viewing a red or yellow color patch, an outline drawing of a strawberry or lemon, or a combination of these color and shape cues. Even though participants were instructed to ignore the visual stimuli, our results demonstrate that the accuracy of their odor discrimination responses was influenced by visual distractors. This result shows that both color and shape information are taken into account during speeded olfactory discrimination, even when such information is completely task irrelevant, hinting at the automaticity of such higher level visual-olfactory crossmodal interactions.

Spatial interactions reveal inhibitory cortical networks in human amblyopia.

PubMed

Wong, Erwin H; Levi, Dennis M; McGraw, Paul V

2005-10-01

Humans with amblyopia have a well-documented loss of sensitivity for first-order, or luminance defined, visual information. Recent studies show that they also display a specific loss of sensitivity for second-order, or contrast defined, visual information; a type of image structure encoded by neurons found predominantly in visual area A18/V2. In the present study, we investigate whether amblyopia disrupts the normal architecture of spatial interactions in V2 by determining the contrast detection threshold of a second-order target in the presence of second-order flanking stimuli. Adjacent flanks facilitated second-order detectability in normal observers. However, in marked contrast, they suppressed detection in each eye of the majority of amblyopic observers. Furthermore, strabismic observers with no loss of visual acuity show a similar pattern of detection suppression. We speculate that amblyopia results in predominantly inhibitory cortical interactions between second-order neurons.

Image-Enabled Discourse: Investigating the Creation of Visual Information as Communicative Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snyder, Jaime

2012-01-01

Anyone who has clarified a thought or prompted a response during a conversation by drawing a picture has exploited the potential of image making as an interactive tool for conveying information. Images are increasingly ubiquitous in daily communication, in large part due to advances in visually enabled information and communication technologies…

An innovative, multidisciplinary educational program in interactive information storage and retrieval. Presentation visuals. M.S. Thesis Final Report, 1 Jul. 1985 - 31 Dec. 1987

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dominick, Wayne D. (Editor); Gallagher, Mary C.

1985-01-01

This Working Paper Series entry represents a collection of presentation visuals associated with the companion report entitled An Innovative, Multidisciplinary Educational Program in Interactive Information Storage and Retrieval, USL/DBMS NASA/RECON Working Paper Series report number DBMS.NASA/RECON-12. The project objectives are to develop a set of transportable, hands-on, data base management courses for science and engineering students to facilitate their utilization of information storage and retrieval programs.

Visualization portal for genetic variation (VizGVar): a tool for interactive visualization of SNPs and somatic mutations in exons, genes and protein domains.

PubMed

Solano-Román, Antonio; Alfaro-Arias, Verónica; Cruz-Castillo, Carlos; Orozco-Solano, Allan

2018-03-15

VizGVar was designed to meet the growing need of the research community for improved genomic and proteomic data viewers that benefit from better information visualization. We implemented a new information architecture and applied user centered design principles to provide a new improved way of visualizing genetic information and protein data related to human disease. VizGVar connects the entire database of Ensembl protein motifs, domains, genes and exons with annotated SNPs and somatic variations from PharmGKB and COSMIC. VizGVar precisely represents genetic variations and their respective location by colored curves to designate different types of variations. The structured hierarchy of biological data is reflected in aggregated patterns through different levels, integrating several layers of information at once. VizGVar provides a new interactive, web-based JavaScript visualization of somatic mutations and protein variation, enabling fast and easy discovery of clinically relevant variation patterns. VizGVar is accessible at http://vizport.io/vizgvar; http://vizport.io/vizgvar/doc/. asolano@broadinstitute.org or allan.orozcosolano@ucr.ac.cr.

Visual Complexity and Pictorial Memory: A Fifteen Year Research Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berry, Louis H.

For 15 years an ongoing research project at the University of Pittsburgh has focused on the effects of variations in visual complexity and color on the storage and retrieval of visual information by learners. Research has shown that visual materials facilitate instruction, but has not fully delineated the interactions of visual complexity and…

Verbal-spatial and visuospatial coding of power-space interactions.

PubMed

Dai, Qiang; Zhu, Lei

2018-05-10

A power-space interaction, which denotes the phenomenon that people responded faster to powerful words when they are placed higher in a visual field and faster to powerless words when they are placed lower in a visual field, has been repeatedly found. The dominant explanation of this power-space interaction is that it results from a tight correspondence between the representation of power and visual space (i.e., a visuospatial coding account). In the present study, we demonstrated that the interaction between power and space could be also based on a verbal-spatial coding in absence of any vertical spatial information. Additionally, the verbal-spatial coding was dominant in driving the power-space interaction when verbal space was contrasted with the visual space. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Multilevel depth and image fusion for human activity detection.

PubMed

Ni, Bingbing; Pei, Yong; Moulin, Pierre; Yan, Shuicheng

2013-10-01

Recognizing complex human activities usually requires the detection and modeling of individual visual features and the interactions between them. Current methods only rely on the visual features extracted from 2-D images, and therefore often lead to unreliable salient visual feature detection and inaccurate modeling of the interaction context between individual features. In this paper, we show that these problems can be addressed by combining data from a conventional camera and a depth sensor (e.g., Microsoft Kinect). We propose a novel complex activity recognition and localization framework that effectively fuses information from both grayscale and depth image channels at multiple levels of the video processing pipeline. In the individual visual feature detection level, depth-based filters are applied to the detected human/object rectangles to remove false detections. In the next level of interaction modeling, 3-D spatial and temporal contexts among human subjects or objects are extracted by integrating information from both grayscale and depth images. Depth information is also utilized to distinguish different types of indoor scenes. Finally, a latent structural model is developed to integrate the information from multiple levels of video processing for an activity detection. Extensive experiments on two activity recognition benchmarks (one with depth information) and a challenging grayscale + depth human activity database that contains complex interactions between human-human, human-object, and human-surroundings demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multilevel grayscale + depth fusion scheme. Higher recognition and localization accuracies are obtained relative to the previous methods.

Novel Scientific Visualization Interfaces for Interactive Information Visualization and Sharing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.

2012-12-01

As geoscientists are confronted with increasingly massive datasets from environmental observations to simulations, one of the biggest challenges is having the right tools to gain scientific insight from the data and communicate the understanding to stakeholders. Recent developments in web technologies make it easy to manage, visualize and share large data sets with general public. Novel visualization techniques and dynamic user interfaces allow users to interact with data, and modify the parameters to create custom views of the data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. This requires developing new data models and intelligent knowledge discovery techniques to explore and extract information from complex computational simulations or large data repositories. Scientific visualization will be an increasingly important component to build comprehensive environmental information platforms. This presentation provides an overview of the trends and challenges in the field of scientific visualization, and demonstrates information visualization and communication tools in the Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS), developed within the light of these challenges. The IFIS is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to and visualization of flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts both short-term and seasonal, and other flood-related data for communities in Iowa. The key element of the system's architecture is the notion of community. Locations of the communities, those near streams and rivers, define basin boundaries. The IFIS provides community-centric watershed and river characteristics, weather (rainfall) conditions, and streamflow data and visualization tools. Interactive interfaces allow access to inundation maps for different stage and return period values, and flooding scenarios with contributions from multiple rivers. Real-time and historical data of water levels, gauge heights, and rainfall conditions are available in the IFIS. 2D and 3D interactive visualizations in the IFIS make the data more understandable to general public. Users are able to filter data sources for their communities and selected rivers. The data and information on IFIS is also accessible through web services and mobile applications. The IFIS is optimized for various browsers and screen sizes to provide access through multiple platforms including tablets and mobile devices. Multiple view modes in the IFIS accommodate different user types from general public to researchers and decision makers by providing different level of tools and details. River view mode allows users to visualize data from multiple IFC bridge sensors and USGS stream gauges to follow flooding condition along a river. The IFIS will help communities make better-informed decisions on the occurrence of floods, and will alert communities in advance to help minimize damage of floods.

A Software Developer’s Guide to Informal Evaluation of Visual Analytics Environments Using VAST Challenge Information

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cook, Kristin A.; Scholtz, Jean; Whiting, Mark A.

The VAST Challenge has been a popular venue for academic and industry participants for over ten years. Many participants comment that the majority of their time in preparing VAST Challenge entries is discovering elements in their software environments that need to be redesigned in order to solve the given task. Fortunately, there is no need to wait until the VAST Challenge is announced to test out software systems. The Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository contains all past VAST Challenge tasks, data, solutions and submissions. This paper details the various types of evaluations that may be conducted using the Repository information. Inmore » this paper we describe how developers can do informal evaluations of various aspects of their visual analytics environments using VAST Challenge information. Aspects that can be evaluated include the appropriateness of the software for various tasks, the various data types and formats that can be accommodated, the effectiveness and efficiency of the process supported by the software, and the intuitiveness of the visualizations and interactions. Researchers can compare their visualizations and interactions to those submitted to determine novelty. In addition, the paper provides pointers to various guidelines that software teams can use to evaluate the usability of their software. While these evaluations are not a replacement for formal evaluation methods, this information can be extremely useful during the development of visual analytics environments.« less

Reviewing and visualizing the interactions of natural hazards

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gill, Joel C.; Malamud, Bruce D.

2014-12-01

This paper presents a broad overview, characterization, and visualization of the interaction relationships between 21 natural hazards, drawn from six hazard groups (geophysical, hydrological, shallow Earth, atmospheric, biophysical, and space hazards). A synthesis is presented of the identified interaction relationships between these hazards, using an accessible visual format particularly suited to end users. Interactions considered are primarily those where a primary hazard triggers or increases the probability of secondary hazards occurring. In this paper we do the following: (i) identify, through a wide-ranging review of grey- and peer-review literature, 90 interactions; (ii) subdivide the interactions into three levels, based on how well we can characterize secondary hazards, given information about the primary hazard; (iii) determine the spatial overlap and temporal likelihood of the triggering relationships occurring; and (iv) examine the relationship between primary and secondary hazard intensities for each identified hazard interaction and group these into five possible categories. In this study we have synthesized, using accessible visualization techniques, large amounts of information drawn from many scientific disciplines. We outline the importance of constraining hazard interactions and reinforce the importance of a holistic (or multihazard) approach to natural hazard assessment. This approach allows those undertaking research into single hazards to place their work within the context of other hazards. It also communicates important aspects of hazard interactions, facilitating an effective analysis by those working on reducing and managing disaster risk within both the policy and practitioner communities.

SLIDE - a web-based tool for interactive visualization of large-scale -omics data.

PubMed

Ghosh, Soumita; Datta, Abhik; Tan, Kaisen; Choi, Hyungwon

2018-06-28

Data visualization is often regarded as a post hoc step for verifying statistically significant results in the analysis of high-throughput data sets. This common practice leaves a large amount of raw data behind, from which more information can be extracted. However, existing solutions do not provide capabilities to explore large-scale raw datasets using biologically sensible queries, nor do they allow user interaction based real-time customization of graphics. To address these drawbacks, we have designed an open-source, web-based tool called Systems-Level Interactive Data Exploration, or SLIDE to visualize large-scale -omics data interactively. SLIDE's interface makes it easier for scientists to explore quantitative expression data in multiple resolutions in a single screen. SLIDE is publicly available under BSD license both as an online version as well as a stand-alone version at https://github.com/soumitag/SLIDE. Supplementary Information are available at Bioinformatics online.

Parallel Visualization Co-Processing of Overnight CFD Propulsion Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Edwards, David E.; Haimes, Robert

1999-01-01

An interactive visualization system pV3 is being developed for the investigation of advanced computational methodologies employing visualization and parallel processing for the extraction of information contained in large-scale transient engineering simulations. Visual techniques for extracting information from the data in terms of cutting planes, iso-surfaces, particle tracing and vector fields are included in this system. This paper discusses improvements to the pV3 system developed under NASA's Affordable High Performance Computing project.

The architecture of visual narrative comprehension: the interaction of narrative structure and page layout in understanding comics.

PubMed

Cohn, Neil

2014-01-01

How do people make sense of the sequential images in visual narratives like comics? A growing literature of recent research has suggested that this comprehension involves the interaction of multiple systems: The creation of meaning across sequential images relies on a "narrative grammar" that packages conceptual information into categorical roles organized in hierarchic constituents. These images are encapsulated into panels arranged in the layout of a physical page. Finally, how panels frame information can impact both the narrative structure and page layout. Altogether, these systems operate in parallel to construct the Gestalt whole of comprehension of this visual language found in comics.

Developing Visualization Techniques for Semantics-based Information Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keller, Richard M.; Hall, David R.

2003-01-01

Information systems incorporating complex network structured information spaces with a semantic underpinning - such as hypermedia networks, semantic networks, topic maps, and concept maps - are being deployed to solve some of NASA s critical information management problems. This paper describes some of the human interaction and navigation problems associated with complex semantic information spaces and describes a set of new visual interface approaches to address these problems. A key strategy is to leverage semantic knowledge represented within these information spaces to construct abstractions and views that will be meaningful to the human user. Human-computer interaction methodologies will guide the development and evaluation of these approaches, which will benefit deployed NASA systems and also apply to information systems based on the emerging Semantic Web.

The evolution of meaning: spatio-temporal dynamics of visual object recognition.

PubMed

Clarke, Alex; Taylor, Kirsten I; Tyler, Lorraine K

2011-08-01

Research on the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual object recognition suggests a recurrent, interactive model whereby an initial feedforward sweep through the ventral stream to prefrontal cortex is followed by recurrent interactions. However, critical questions remain regarding the factors that mediate the degree of recurrent interactions necessary for meaningful object recognition. The novel prediction we test here is that recurrent interactivity is driven by increasing semantic integration demands as defined by the complexity of semantic information required by the task and driven by the stimuli. To test this prediction, we recorded magnetoencephalography data while participants named living and nonliving objects during two naming tasks. We found that the spatio-temporal dynamics of neural activity were modulated by the level of semantic integration required. Specifically, source reconstructed time courses and phase synchronization measures showed increased recurrent interactions as a function of semantic integration demands. These findings demonstrate that the cortical dynamics of object processing are modulated by the complexity of semantic information required from the visual input.

Enhancing Interactive Tutorial Effectiveness through Visual Cueing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jamet, Eric; Fernandez, Jonathan

2016-01-01

The present study investigated whether learning how to use a web service with an interactive tutorial can be enhanced by cueing. We expected the attentional guidance provided by visual cues to facilitate the selection of information in static screen displays that corresponded to spoken explanations. Unlike most previous studies in this area, we…

Cross-Modal Interactions during Perception of Audiovisual Speech and Nonspeech Signals: An fMRI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hertrich, Ingo; Dietrich, Susanne; Ackermann, Hermann

2011-01-01

During speech communication, visual information may interact with the auditory system at various processing stages. Most noteworthy, recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) data provided first evidence for early and preattentive phonetic/phonological encoding of the visual data stream--prior to its fusion with auditory phonological features [Hertrich,…

The Interaction of Color Realism and Pictorial Recall Memory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berry, Louis H.

This study investigated the interaction of variations in color realism on pictorial recall memory in order to better understand the effects of variations in color realism, and to draw comparisons between visual recall memory and visual recognition memory in terms of color information processing. Stimulus materials used were three sets of slides,…

Matisse: A Visual Analytics System for Exploring Emotion Trends in Social Media Text Streams

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Steed, Chad A; Drouhard, Margaret MEG G; Beaver, Justin M

Dynamically mining textual information streams to gain real-time situational awareness is especially challenging with social media systems where throughput and velocity properties push the limits of a static analytical approach. In this paper, we describe an interactive visual analytics system, called Matisse, that aids with the discovery and investigation of trends in streaming text. Matisse addresses the challenges inherent to text stream mining through the following technical contributions: (1) robust stream data management, (2) automated sentiment/emotion analytics, (3) interactive coordinated visualizations, and (4) a flexible drill-down interaction scheme that accesses multiple levels of detail. In addition to positive/negative sentiment prediction,more » Matisse provides fine-grained emotion classification based on Valence, Arousal, and Dominance dimensions and a novel machine learning process. Information from the sentiment/emotion analytics are fused with raw data and summary information to feed temporal, geospatial, term frequency, and scatterplot visualizations using a multi-scale, coordinated interaction model. After describing these techniques, we conclude with a practical case study focused on analyzing the Twitter sample stream during the week of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The case study demonstrates the effectiveness of Matisse at providing guided situational awareness of significant trends in social media streams by orchestrating computational power and human cognition.« less

Spatial Paradigm for Information Retrieval and Exploration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

The SPIRE system consists of software for visual analysis of primarily text based information sources. This technology enables the content analysis of text documents without reading all the documents. It employs several algorithms for text and word proximity analysis. It identifies the key themes within the text documents. From this analysis, it projects the results onto a visual spatial proximity display (Galaxies or Themescape) where items (documents and/or themes) visually close to each other are known to have content which is close to each other. Innovative interaction techniques then allow for dynamic visual analysis of large text based information spaces.

SPIRE1.03. Spatial Paradigm for Information Retrieval and Exploration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Adams, K.J.; Bohn, S.; Crow, V.

The SPIRE system consists of software for visual analysis of primarily text based information sources. This technology enables the content analysis of text documents without reading all the documents. It employs several algorithms for text and word proximity analysis. It identifies the key themes within the text documents. From this analysis, it projects the results onto a visual spatial proximity display (Galaxies or Themescape) where items (documents and/or themes) visually close to each other are known to have content which is close to each other. Innovative interaction techniques then allow for dynamic visual analysis of large text based information spaces.

Organic light emitting board for dynamic interactive display

PubMed Central

Kim, Eui Hyuk; Cho, Sung Hwan; Lee, Ju Han; Jeong, Beomjin; Kim, Richard Hahnkee; Yu, Seunggun; Lee, Tae-Woo; Shim, Wooyoung; Park, Cheolmin

2017-01-01

Interactive displays involve the interfacing of a stimuli-responsive sensor with a visual human-readable response. Here, we describe a polymeric electroluminescence-based stimuli-responsive display method that simultaneously detects external stimuli and visualizes the stimulant object. This organic light-emitting board is capable of both sensing and direct visualization of a variety of conductive information. Simultaneous sensing and visualization of the conductive substance is achieved when the conductive object is coupled with the light emissive material layer on application of alternating current. A variety of conductive materials can be detected regardless of their work functions, and thus information written by a conductive pen is clearly visualized, as is a human fingerprint with natural conductivity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that integration of the organic light-emitting board with a fluidic channel readily allows for dynamic monitoring of metallic liquid flow through the channel, which may be suitable for biological detection and imaging applications. PMID:28406151

Organic light emitting board for dynamic interactive display

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Eui Hyuk; Cho, Sung Hwan; Lee, Ju Han; Jeong, Beomjin; Kim, Richard Hahnkee; Yu, Seunggun; Lee, Tae-Woo; Shim, Wooyoung; Park, Cheolmin

2017-04-01

Interactive displays involve the interfacing of a stimuli-responsive sensor with a visual human-readable response. Here, we describe a polymeric electroluminescence-based stimuli-responsive display method that simultaneously detects external stimuli and visualizes the stimulant object. This organic light-emitting board is capable of both sensing and direct visualization of a variety of conductive information. Simultaneous sensing and visualization of the conductive substance is achieved when the conductive object is coupled with the light emissive material layer on application of alternating current. A variety of conductive materials can be detected regardless of their work functions, and thus information written by a conductive pen is clearly visualized, as is a human fingerprint with natural conductivity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that integration of the organic light-emitting board with a fluidic channel readily allows for dynamic monitoring of metallic liquid flow through the channel, which may be suitable for biological detection and imaging applications.

Sharpening of Hierarchical Visual Feature Representations of Blurred Images.

PubMed

Abdelhack, Mohamed; Kamitani, Yukiyasu

2018-01-01

The robustness of the visual system lies in its ability to perceive degraded images. This is achieved through interacting bottom-up, recurrent, and top-down pathways that process the visual input in concordance with stored prior information. The interaction mechanism by which they integrate visual input and prior information is still enigmatic. We present a new approach using deep neural network (DNN) representation to reveal the effects of such integration on degraded visual inputs. We transformed measured human brain activity resulting from viewing blurred images to the hierarchical representation space derived from a feedforward DNN. Transformed representations were found to veer toward the original nonblurred image and away from the blurred stimulus image. This indicated deblurring or sharpening in the neural representation, and possibly in our perception. We anticipate these results will help unravel the interplay mechanism between bottom-up, recurrent, and top-down pathways, leading to more comprehensive models of vision.

Restoring Fort Frontenac in 3D: Effective Usage of 3D Technology for Heritage Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yabe, M.; Goins, E.; Jackson, C.; Halbstein, D.; Foster, S.; Bazely, S.

2015-02-01

This paper is composed of three elements: 3D modeling, web design, and heritage visualization. The aim is to use computer graphics design to inform and create an interest in historical visualization by rebuilding Fort Frontenac using 3D modeling and interactive design. The final model will be integr ated into an interactive website to learn more about the fort's historic imp ortance. It is apparent that using computer graphics can save time and money when it comes to historical visualization. Visitors do not have to travel to the actual archaeological buildings. They can simply use the Web in their own home to learn about this information virtually. Meticulously following historical records to create a sophisticated restoration of archaeological buildings will draw viewers into visualizations, such as the historical world of Fort Frontenac. As a result, it allows the viewers to effectively understand the fort's social sy stem, habits, and historical events.

Evidence for the Activation of Sensorimotor Information during Visual Word Recognition: The Body-Object Interaction Effect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siakaluk, Paul D.; Pexman, Penny M.; Aguilera, Laura; Owen, William J.; Sears, Christopher R.

2008-01-01

We examined the effects of sensorimotor experience in two visual word recognition tasks. Body-object interaction (BOI) ratings were collected for a large set of words. These ratings assess perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. A set of high BOI words (e.g., "mask") and a set of low BOI…

The shaping of information by visual metaphors.

PubMed

Ziemkiewicz, Caroline; Kosara, Robert

2008-01-01

The nature of an information visualization can be considered to lie in the visual metaphors it uses to structure information. The process of understanding a visualization therefore involves an interaction between these external visual metaphors and the user's internal knowledge representations. To investigate this claim, we conducted an experiment to test the effects of visual metaphor and verbal metaphor on the understanding of tree visualizations. Participants answered simple data comprehension questions while viewing either a treemap or a node-link diagram. Questions were worded to reflect a verbal metaphor that was either compatible or incompatible with the visualization a participant was using. The results (based on correctness and response time) suggest that the visual metaphor indeed affects how a user derives information from a visualization. Additionally, we found that the degree to which a user is affected by the metaphor is strongly correlated with the user's ability to answer task questions correctly. These findings are a first step towards illuminating how visual metaphors shape user understanding, and have significant implications for the evaluation, application, and theory of visualization.

Interactive visualization and analysis of multimodal datasets for surgical applications.

PubMed

Kirmizibayrak, Can; Yim, Yeny; Wakid, Mike; Hahn, James

2012-12-01

Surgeons use information from multiple sources when making surgical decisions. These include volumetric datasets (such as CT, PET, MRI, and their variants), 2D datasets (such as endoscopic videos), and vector-valued datasets (such as computer simulations). Presenting all the information to the user in an effective manner is a challenging problem. In this paper, we present a visualization approach that displays the information from various sources in a single coherent view. The system allows the user to explore and manipulate volumetric datasets, display analysis of dataset values in local regions, combine 2D and 3D imaging modalities and display results of vector-based computer simulations. Several interaction methods are discussed: in addition to traditional interfaces including mouse and trackers, gesture-based natural interaction methods are shown to control these visualizations with real-time performance. An example of a medical application (medialization laryngoplasty) is presented to demonstrate how the combination of different modalities can be used in a surgical setting with our approach.

Multimodal Virtual Environments: MAGIC Toolkit and Visual-Haptic Interaction Paradigms

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-01-01

2.7.3 Load/Save Options ..... 2.7.4 Information Display .... 2.8 Library Files. 2.9 Evaluation .............. 3 Visual-Haptic Interactions 3.1...Northwestern University[ Colgate , 1994]. It is possible for a user to touch one side of a thin object and be propelled out the opposite side, because...when there is a high correlation in motion and force between the visual and haptic realms. * Chapter 7 concludes with an evaluation of the application

Tailored information for cancer patients on the Internet: effects of visual cues and language complexity on information recall and satisfaction.

PubMed

van Weert, Julia C M; van Noort, Guda; Bol, Nadine; van Dijk, Liset; Tates, Kiek; Jansen, Jesse

2011-09-01

This study was designed to investigate the effects of visual cues and language complexity on satisfaction and information recall using a personalised website for lung cancer patients. In addition, age effects were investigated. An experiment using a 2 (complex vs. non-complex language)×3 (text only vs. photograph vs. drawing) factorial design was conducted. In total, 200 respondents without cancer were exposed to one of the six conditions. Respondents were more satisfied with the comprehensibility of both websites when they were presented with a visual cue. A significant interaction effect was found between language complexity and photograph use such that satisfaction with comprehensibility improved when a photograph was added to the complex language condition. Next, an interaction effect was found between age and satisfaction, which indicates that adding a visual cue is more important for older adults than younger adults. Finally, respondents who were exposed to a website with less complex language showed higher recall scores. The use of visual cues enhances satisfaction with the information presented on the website, and the use of non-complex language improves recall. The results of the current study can be used to improve computer-based information systems for patients. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integrated web visualizations for protein-protein interaction databases.

PubMed

Jeanquartier, Fleur; Jean-Quartier, Claire; Holzinger, Andreas

2015-06-16

Understanding living systems is crucial for curing diseases. To achieve this task we have to understand biological networks based on protein-protein interactions. Bioinformatics has come up with a great amount of databases and tools that support analysts in exploring protein-protein interactions on an integrated level for knowledge discovery. They provide predictions and correlations, indicate possibilities for future experimental research and fill the gaps to complete the picture of biochemical processes. There are numerous and huge databases of protein-protein interactions used to gain insights into answering some of the many questions of systems biology. Many computational resources integrate interaction data with additional information on molecular background. However, the vast number of diverse Bioinformatics resources poses an obstacle to the goal of understanding. We present a survey of databases that enable the visual analysis of protein networks. We selected M=10 out of N=53 resources supporting visualization, and we tested against the following set of criteria: interoperability, data integration, quantity of possible interactions, data visualization quality and data coverage. The study reveals differences in usability, visualization features and quality as well as the quantity of interactions. StringDB is the recommended first choice. CPDB presents a comprehensive dataset and IntAct lets the user change the network layout. A comprehensive comparison table is available via web. The supplementary table can be accessed on http://tinyurl.com/PPI-DB-Comparison-2015. Only some web resources featuring graph visualization can be successfully applied to interactive visual analysis of protein-protein interaction. Study results underline the necessity for further enhancements of visualization integration in biochemical analysis tools. Identified challenges are data comprehensiveness, confidence, interactive feature and visualization maturing.

Attentional Preference and Experience: II. An Exploratory Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Visual Familiarity and Responsiveness.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Uzgiris, Ina C.; Hunt, J. McV.

The human infant is now considered capable of active informational interaction with the environment. This study tested certain hypotheses concerning the nature of that interaction. These hypotheses, developed partly from Piaget's work, are (1) that repeated visual encounters with a stimulus pattern leads first to attentional preference for that…

"Whoa! We're Going Deep in the Trees!": Patterns of Collaboration around an Interactive Information Visualization Exhibit

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Pryce; Horn, Michael; Block, Florian; Phillips, Brenda; Evans, E. Margaret; Diamond, Judy; Shen, Chia

2015-01-01

In this paper we present a qualitative analysis of natural history museum visitor interaction around a multi-touch tabletop exhibit called "DeepTree" that we designed around concepts of evolution and common descent. DeepTree combines several large scientific datasets and an innovative visualization technique to display a phylogenetic…

The architecture of visual narrative comprehension: the interaction of narrative structure and page layout in understanding comics

PubMed Central

Cohn, Neil

2014-01-01

How do people make sense of the sequential images in visual narratives like comics? A growing literature of recent research has suggested that this comprehension involves the interaction of multiple systems: The creation of meaning across sequential images relies on a “narrative grammar” that packages conceptual information into categorical roles organized in hierarchic constituents. These images are encapsulated into panels arranged in the layout of a physical page. Finally, how panels frame information can impact both the narrative structure and page layout. Altogether, these systems operate in parallel to construct the Gestalt whole of comprehension of this visual language found in comics. PMID:25071651

Top-Down Control of Visual Attention by the Prefrontal Cortex. Functional Specialization and Long-Range Interactions

PubMed Central

Paneri, Sofia; Gregoriou, Georgia G.

2017-01-01

The ability to select information that is relevant to current behavioral goals is the hallmark of voluntary attention and an essential part of our cognition. Attention tasks are a prime example to study at the neuronal level, how task related information can be selectively processed in the brain while irrelevant information is filtered out. Whereas, numerous studies have focused on elucidating the mechanisms of visual attention at the single neuron and population level in the visual cortices, considerably less work has been devoted to deciphering the distinct contribution of higher-order brain areas, which are known to be critical for the employment of attention. Among these areas, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has long been considered a source of top-down signals that bias selection in early visual areas in favor of the attended features. Here, we review recent experimental data that support the role of PFC in attention. We examine the existing evidence for functional specialization within PFC and we discuss how long-range interactions between PFC subregions and posterior visual areas may be implemented in the brain and contribute to the attentional modulation of different measures of neural activity in visual cortices. PMID:29033784

Top-Down Control of Visual Attention by the Prefrontal Cortex. Functional Specialization and Long-Range Interactions.

PubMed

Paneri, Sofia; Gregoriou, Georgia G

2017-01-01

The ability to select information that is relevant to current behavioral goals is the hallmark of voluntary attention and an essential part of our cognition. Attention tasks are a prime example to study at the neuronal level, how task related information can be selectively processed in the brain while irrelevant information is filtered out. Whereas, numerous studies have focused on elucidating the mechanisms of visual attention at the single neuron and population level in the visual cortices, considerably less work has been devoted to deciphering the distinct contribution of higher-order brain areas, which are known to be critical for the employment of attention. Among these areas, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has long been considered a source of top-down signals that bias selection in early visual areas in favor of the attended features. Here, we review recent experimental data that support the role of PFC in attention. We examine the existing evidence for functional specialization within PFC and we discuss how long-range interactions between PFC subregions and posterior visual areas may be implemented in the brain and contribute to the attentional modulation of different measures of neural activity in visual cortices.

Formulating qualitative features using interactive visualization for analysis of multivariate spatiotemporal data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Porter, M.; Hill, M. C.; Pierce, S. A.; Gil, Y.; Pennington, D. D.

2017-12-01

DiscoverWater is a web-based visualization tool developed to enable the visual representation of data, and thus, aid scientific and societal understanding of hydrologic systems. Open data sources are coalesced to, for example, illustrate the impacts on streamflow of irrigation withdrawals. Scientists and stakeholders are informed through synchronized time-series data plots that correlate multiple spatiotemporal datasets and an interactive time-evolving map that provides a spatial analytical context. Together, these components elucidate trends so that the user can try to envision the relations between groundwater-surface water interactions, the impacts of pumping on these interactions, and the interplay of climate. Aligning data in this manner has the capacity for interdisciplinary knowledge discovery and motivates dialogue about system processes that we seek to enhance through qualitative features informed through quantitative models. DiscoverWater and its connection is demonstrated using two field cases. First, it is used to visualize data sets from the High Plains aquifer, where reservoir- and groundwater-supported irrigation has affected the Arkansas River in western Kansas. Second, data and model results from Barton Springs segment of the Edwards aquifer in Texas reveal the effects of regional pumping on this important urbanizing aquifer system. Identifying what is interesting about the data and the modeled system in the two different case studies is a step towards moving typically static visualization capabilities to an adaptive framework. Additionally, the dashboard interface incorporates both quantitative and qualitative information about distinctive case studies in a machine-readable form, such that a catalog of qualitative models can capture subject matter expertise alongside associated datasets. As the catalog is expanded to include other case studies, the collection has potential to establish a standard framework able to inform intelligent system reasoning.

Parallel Planes Information Visualization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bush, Brian

2015-12-26

This software presents a user-provided multivariate dataset as an interactive three dimensional visualization so that the user can explore the correlation between variables in the observations and the distribution of observations among the variables.

Generalized information fusion and visualization using spatial voting and data modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaenisch, Holger M.; Handley, James W.

2013-05-01

We present a novel and innovative information fusion and visualization framework for multi-source intelligence (multiINT) data using Spatial Voting (SV) and Data Modeling. We describe how different sources of information can be converted into numerical form for further processing downstream, followed by a short description of how this information can be fused using the SV grid. As an illustrative example, we show the modeling of cyberspace as cyber layers for the purpose of tracking cyber personas. Finally we describe a path ahead for creating interactive agile networks through defender customized Cyber-cubes for network configuration and attack visualization.

Learning to Match Auditory and Visual Speech Cues: Social Influences on Acquisition of Phonological Categories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Altvater-Mackensen, Nicole; Grossmann, Tobias

2015-01-01

Infants' language exposure largely involves face-to-face interactions providing acoustic and visual speech cues but also social cues that might foster language learning. Yet, both audiovisual speech information and social information have so far received little attention in research on infants' early language development. Using a preferential…

The Effect of User Characteristics on the Efficiency of Visual Querying

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bak, Peter; Meyer, Joachim

2011-01-01

Information systems increasingly provide options for visually inspecting data during the process of information discovery and exploration. Little research has dealt so far with user interactions with these systems, and specifically with the effects of characteristics of the displayed data and the user on performance with such systems. The study…

Visual and Non-Visual Contributions to the Perception of Object Motion during Self-Motion

PubMed Central

Fajen, Brett R.; Matthis, Jonathan S.

2013-01-01

Many locomotor tasks involve interactions with moving objects. When observer (i.e., self-)motion is accompanied by object motion, the optic flow field includes a component due to self-motion and a component due to object motion. For moving observers to perceive the movement of other objects relative to the stationary environment, the visual system could recover the object-motion component – that is, it could factor out the influence of self-motion. In principle, this could be achieved using visual self-motion information, non-visual self-motion information, or a combination of both. In this study, we report evidence that visual information about the speed (Experiment 1) and direction (Experiment 2) of self-motion plays a role in recovering the object-motion component even when non-visual self-motion information is also available. However, the magnitude of the effect was less than one would expect if subjects relied entirely on visual self-motion information. Taken together with previous studies, we conclude that when self-motion is real and actively generated, both visual and non-visual self-motion information contribute to the perception of object motion. We also consider the possible role of this process in visually guided interception and avoidance of moving objects. PMID:23408983

3D interactive surgical visualization system using mobile spatial information acquisition and autostereoscopic display.

PubMed

Fan, Zhencheng; Weng, Yitong; Chen, Guowen; Liao, Hongen

2017-07-01

Three-dimensional (3D) visualization of preoperative and intraoperative medical information becomes more and more important in minimally invasive surgery. We develop a 3D interactive surgical visualization system using mobile spatial information acquisition and autostereoscopic display for surgeons to observe surgical target intuitively. The spatial information of regions of interest (ROIs) is captured by the mobile device and transferred to a server for further image processing. Triangular patches of intraoperative data with texture are calculated with a dimension-reduced triangulation algorithm and a projection-weighted mapping algorithm. A point cloud selection-based warm-start iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm is also developed for fusion of the reconstructed 3D intraoperative image and the preoperative image. The fusion images are rendered for 3D autostereoscopic display using integral videography (IV) technology. Moreover, 3D visualization of medical image corresponding to observer's viewing direction is updated automatically using mutual information registration method. Experimental results show that the spatial position error between the IV-based 3D autostereoscopic fusion image and the actual object was 0.38±0.92mm (n=5). The system can be utilized in telemedicine, operating education, surgical planning, navigation, etc. to acquire spatial information conveniently and display surgical information intuitively. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How Therapists Use Visualizations of Upper Limb Movement Information From Stroke Patients: A Qualitative Study With Simulated Information

PubMed Central

Fong, Justin; Klaic, Marlena; Nair, Siddharth; Vetere, Frank; Cofré Lizama, L. Eduardo; Galea, Mary Pauline

2016-01-01

Background Stroke is a leading cause of disability worldwide, with upper limb deficits affecting an estimated 30% to 60% of survivors. The effectiveness of upper limb rehabilitation relies on numerous factors, particularly patient compliance to home programs and exercises set by therapists. However, therapists lack objective information about their patients’ adherence to rehabilitation exercises as well as other uses of the affected arm and hand in everyday life outside the clinic. We developed a system that consists of wearable sensor technology to monitor a patient’s arm movement and a Web-based dashboard to visualize this information for therapists. Objective The aim of our study was to evaluate how therapists use upper limb movement information visualized on a dashboard to support the rehabilitation process. Methods An interactive dashboard prototype with simulated movement information was created and evaluated through a user-centered design process with therapists (N=8) at a rehabilitation clinic. Data were collected through observations of therapists interacting with an interactive dashboard prototype, think-aloud data, and interviews. Data were analyzed qualitatively through thematic analysis. Results Therapists use visualizations of upper limb information in the following ways: (1) to obtain objective data of patients’ activity levels, exercise, and neglect outside the clinic, (2) to engage patients in the rehabilitation process through education, motivation, and discussion of experiences with activities of daily living, and (3) to engage with other clinicians and researchers based on objective data. A major limitation is the lack of contextual data, which is needed by therapists to discern how movement data visualized on the dashboard relate to activities of daily living. Conclusions Upper limb information captured through wearable devices provides novel insights for therapists and helps to engage patients and other clinicians in therapy. Consideration needs to be given to the collection and visualization of contextual information to provide meaningful insights into patient engagement in activities of daily living. These findings open the door for further work to develop a fully functioning system and to trial it with patients and clinicians during therapy. PMID:28582257

Harnessing the web information ecosystem with wiki-based visualization dashboards.

PubMed

McKeon, Matt

2009-01-01

We describe the design and deployment of Dashiki, a public website where users may collaboratively build visualization dashboards through a combination of a wiki-like syntax and interactive editors. Our goals are to extend existing research on social data analysis into presentation and organization of data from multiple sources, explore new metaphors for these activities, and participate more fully in the web!s information ecology by providing tighter integration with real-time data. To support these goals, our design includes novel and low-barrier mechanisms for editing and layout of dashboard pages and visualizations, connection to data sources, and coordinating interaction between visualizations. In addition to describing these technologies, we provide a preliminary report on the public launch of a prototype based on this design, including a description of the activities of our users derived from observation and interviews.

MRIVIEW: An interactive computational tool for investigation of brain structure and function

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ranken, D.; George, J.

MRIVIEW is a software system which uses image processing and visualization to provide neuroscience researchers with an integrated environment for combining functional and anatomical information. Key features of the software include semi-automated segmentation of volumetric head data and an interactive coordinate reconciliation method which utilizes surface visualization. The current system is a precursor to a computational brain atlas. We describe features this atlas will incorporate, including methods under development for visualizing brain functional data obtained from several different research modalities.

Multimedia Analysis plus Visual Analytics = Multimedia Analytics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chinchor, Nancy; Thomas, James J.; Wong, Pak C.

2010-10-01

Multimedia analysis has focused on images, video, and to some extent audio and has made progress in single channels excluding text. Visual analytics has focused on the user interaction with data during the analytic process plus the fundamental mathematics and has continued to treat text as did its precursor, information visualization. The general problem we address in this tutorial is the combining of multimedia analysis and visual analytics to deal with multimedia information gathered from different sources, with different goals or objectives, and containing all media types and combinations in common usage.

Visualization rhetoric: framing effects in narrative visualization.

PubMed

Hullman, Jessica; Diakopoulos, Nicholas

2011-12-01

Narrative visualizations combine conventions of communicative and exploratory information visualization to convey an intended story. We demonstrate visualization rhetoric as an analytical framework for understanding how design techniques that prioritize particular interpretations in visualizations that "tell a story" can significantly affect end-user interpretation. We draw a parallel between narrative visualization interpretation and evidence from framing studies in political messaging, decision-making, and literary studies. Devices for understanding the rhetorical nature of narrative information visualizations are presented, informed by the rigorous application of concepts from critical theory, semiotics, journalism, and political theory. We draw attention to how design tactics represent additions or omissions of information at various levels-the data, visual representation, textual annotations, and interactivity-and how visualizations denote and connote phenomena with reference to unstated viewing conventions and codes. Classes of rhetorical techniques identified via a systematic analysis of recent narrative visualizations are presented, and characterized according to their rhetorical contribution to the visualization. We describe how designers and researchers can benefit from the potentially positive aspects of visualization rhetoric in designing engaging, layered narrative visualizations and how our framework can shed light on how a visualization design prioritizes specific interpretations. We identify areas where future inquiry into visualization rhetoric can improve understanding of visualization interpretation. © 2011 IEEE

Effects of Interactive versus Simultaneous Display of Multimedia Glosses on L2 Reading Comprehension and Incidental Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Türk, Emine; Erçetin, Gülcan

2014-01-01

This study examines the effects of interactive versus simultaneous display of visual and verbal multimedia information on incidental vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of learners of English with lower proficiency levels. In the interactive display condition, learners were allowed to select the type of multimedia information whereas the…

The Influence of Individual Differences on Diagrammatic Communication and Problem Representation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, Laurel A.

2009-01-01

Understanding the user and customizing the interface to augment cognition and usability are goals of human computer interaction research and design. Yet, little is known about the influence of individual visual-verbal information presentation preferences on visual navigation and screen element usage. If consistent differences in visual navigation…

The role of 3-D interactive visualization in blind surveys of H I in galaxies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Punzo, D.; van der Hulst, J. M.; Roerdink, J. B. T. M.; Oosterloo, T. A.; Ramatsoku, M.; Verheijen, M. A. W.

2015-09-01

Upcoming H I surveys will deliver large datasets, and automated processing using the full 3-D information (two positional dimensions and one spectral dimension) to find and characterize H I objects is imperative. In this context, visualization is an essential tool for enabling qualitative and quantitative human control on an automated source finding and analysis pipeline. We discuss how Visual Analytics, the combination of automated data processing and human reasoning, creativity and intuition, supported by interactive visualization, enables flexible and fast interaction with the 3-D data, helping the astronomer to deal with the analysis of complex sources. 3-D visualization, coupled to modeling, provides additional capabilities helping the discovery and analysis of subtle structures in the 3-D domain. The requirements for a fully interactive visualization tool are: coupled 1-D/2-D/3-D visualization, quantitative and comparative capabilities, combined with supervised semi-automated analysis. Moreover, the source code must have the following characteristics for enabling collaborative work: open, modular, well documented, and well maintained. We review four state of-the-art, 3-D visualization packages assessing their capabilities and feasibility for use in the case of 3-D astronomical data.

Vids: Version 2.0 Alpha Visualization Engine

DTIC Science & Technology

2018-04-25

fidelity than existing efforts. Vids is a project aimed at producing more dynamic and interactive visualization tools using modern computer game ...move through and interact with the data to improve informational understanding. The Vids software leverages off-the-shelf modern game development...analysis and correlations. Recently, an ARL-pioneered project named Virtual Reality Data Analysis Environment (VRDAE) used VR and a modern game engine

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) facilitates overall visual search response times but does not interact with visual search task factors

PubMed Central

Gordon, Barry

2018-01-01

Whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) affects mental functions, and how any such effects arise from its neural effects, continue to be debated. We investigated whether tDCS applied over the visual cortex (Oz) with a vertex (Cz) reference might affect response times (RTs) in a visual search task. We also examined whether any significant tDCS effects would interact with task factors (target presence, discrimination difficulty, and stimulus brightness) that are known to selectively influence one or the other of the two information processing stages posited by current models of visual search. Based on additive factor logic, we expected that the pattern of interactions involving a significant tDCS effect could help us colocalize the tDCS effect to one (or both) of the processing stages. In Experiment 1 (n = 12), anodal tDCS improved RTs significantly; cathodal tDCS produced a nonsignificant trend toward improvement. However, there were no interactions between the anodal tDCS effect and target presence or discrimination difficulty. In Experiment 2 (n = 18), we manipulated stimulus brightness along with target presence and discrimination difficulty. Anodal and cathodal tDCS both produced significant improvements in RTs. Again, the tDCS effects did not interact with any of the task factors. In Experiment 3 (n = 16), electrodes were placed at Cz and on the upper arm, to test for a possible effect of incidental stimulation of the motor regions under Cz. No effect of tDCS on RTs was found. These findings strengthen the case for tDCS having real effects on cerebral information processing. However, these effects did not clearly arise from either of the two processing stages of the visual search process. We suggest that this is because tDCS has a DIFFUSE, pervasive action across the task-relevant neuroanatomical region(s), not a discrete effect in terms of information processing stages. PMID:29558513

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) facilitates overall visual search response times but does not interact with visual search task factors.

PubMed

Sung, Kyongje; Gordon, Barry

2018-01-01

Whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) affects mental functions, and how any such effects arise from its neural effects, continue to be debated. We investigated whether tDCS applied over the visual cortex (Oz) with a vertex (Cz) reference might affect response times (RTs) in a visual search task. We also examined whether any significant tDCS effects would interact with task factors (target presence, discrimination difficulty, and stimulus brightness) that are known to selectively influence one or the other of the two information processing stages posited by current models of visual search. Based on additive factor logic, we expected that the pattern of interactions involving a significant tDCS effect could help us colocalize the tDCS effect to one (or both) of the processing stages. In Experiment 1 (n = 12), anodal tDCS improved RTs significantly; cathodal tDCS produced a nonsignificant trend toward improvement. However, there were no interactions between the anodal tDCS effect and target presence or discrimination difficulty. In Experiment 2 (n = 18), we manipulated stimulus brightness along with target presence and discrimination difficulty. Anodal and cathodal tDCS both produced significant improvements in RTs. Again, the tDCS effects did not interact with any of the task factors. In Experiment 3 (n = 16), electrodes were placed at Cz and on the upper arm, to test for a possible effect of incidental stimulation of the motor regions under Cz. No effect of tDCS on RTs was found. These findings strengthen the case for tDCS having real effects on cerebral information processing. However, these effects did not clearly arise from either of the two processing stages of the visual search process. We suggest that this is because tDCS has a DIFFUSE, pervasive action across the task-relevant neuroanatomical region(s), not a discrete effect in terms of information processing stages.

3D Virtual Environment Used to Support Lighting System Management in a Building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sampaio, A. Z.; Ferreira, M. M.; Rosário, D. P.

The main aim of the research project, which is in progress at the UTL, is to develop a virtual interactive model as a tool to support decision-making in the planning of construction maintenance and facilities management. The virtual model gives the capacity to allow the user to transmit, visually and interactively, information related to the components of a building, defined as a function of the time variable. In addition, the analysis of solutions for repair work/substitution and inherent cost are predicted, the results being obtained interactively and visualized in the virtual environment itself. The first component of the virtual prototype concerns the management of lamps in a lighting system. It was applied in a study case. The interactive application allows the examination of the physical model, visualizing, for each element modeled in 3D and linked to a database, the corresponding technical information concerned with the use of the material, calculated for different points in time during their life. The control of a lamp stock, the constant updating of lifetime information and the planning of periodical local inspections are attended on the prototype. This is an important mean of cooperation between collaborators involved in the building management.

Multivariate spatiotemporal visualizations for mobile devices in Flyover Country

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loeffler, S.; Thorn, R.; Myrbo, A.; Roth, R.; Goring, S. J.; Williams, J.

2017-12-01

Visualizing and interacting with complex multivariate and spatiotemporal datasets on mobile devices is challenging due to their smaller screens, reduced processing power, and limited data connectivity. Pollen data require visualizing pollen assemblages spatially, temporally, and across multiple taxa to understand plant community dynamics through time. Drawing from cartography, information visualization, and paleoecology, we have created new mobile-first visualization techniques that represent multiple taxa across many sites and enable user interaction. Using pollen datasets from the Neotoma Paleoecology Database as a case study, the visualization techniques allow ecological patterns and trends to be quickly understood on a mobile device compared to traditional pollen diagrams and maps. This flexible visualization system can be used for datasets beyond pollen, with the only requirements being point-based localities and multiple variables changing through time or depth.

Effects of Visual Information on Intelligibility of Open and Closed Class Words in Predictable Sentences Produced by Speakers with Dysarthria

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hustad, Katherine C.; Dardis, Caitlin M.; Mccourt, Kelly A.

2007-01-01

This study examined the independent and interactive effects of visual information and linguistic class of words on intelligibility of dysarthric speech. Seven speakers with dysarthria participated in the study, along with 224 listeners who transcribed speech samples in audiovisual (AV) or audio-only (AO) listening conditions. Orthographic…

Molecules to maps: tools for visualization and interaction in support of computational biology.

PubMed

Kraemer, E T; Ferrin, T E

1998-01-01

The volume of data produced by genome projects, X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, and electron and confocal microscopy present the bioinformatics community with new challenges for analyzing, understanding, and exchanging this data. At the 1998 Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, a track entitled 'Molecules to Maps: Tools for Visualization and Interaction in Computational Biology' provided tool developers and users with the opportunity to discuss advances in tools and techniques to assist scientists in evaluating, absorbing, navigating, and correlating this sea of information, through visualization and user interaction. In this paper we present these advances and discuss some of the challenges that remain to be solved.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cook, Kris A.; Scholtz, Jean; Whiting, Mark A.

The VAST Challenge has been a popular venue for academic and industry participants for over ten years. Many participants comment that the majority of their time in preparing VAST Challenge entries is discovering elements in their software environments that need to be redesigned in order to solve the given task. Fortunately, there is no need to wait until the VAST Challenge is announced to test out software systems. The Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository contains all past VAST Challenge tasks, data, solutions and submissions. This paper details the various types of evaluations that may be conducted using the Repository information. Inmore » this paper we describe how developers can do informal evaluations of various aspects of their visual analytics environments using VAST Challenge information. Aspects that can be evaluated include the appropriateness of the software for various tasks, the various data types and formats that can be accommodated, the effectiveness and efficiency of the process supported by the software, and the intuitiveness of the visualizations and interactions. Researchers can compare their visualizations and interactions to those submitted to determine novelty. In addition, the paper provides pointers to various guidelines that software teams can use to evaluate the usability of their software. While these evaluations are not a replacement for formal evaluation methods, this information can be extremely useful during the development of visual analytics environments.« less

Comparing two types of engineering visualizations: task-related manipulations matter.

PubMed

Cölln, Martin C; Kusch, Kerstin; Helmert, Jens R; Kohler, Petra; Velichkovsky, Boris M; Pannasch, Sebastian

2012-01-01

This study focuses on the comparison of traditional engineering drawings with a CAD (computer aided design) visualization in terms of user performance and eye movements in an applied context. Twenty-five students of mechanical engineering completed search tasks for measures in two distinct depictions of a car engine component (engineering drawing vs. CAD model). Besides spatial dimensionality, the display types most notably differed in terms of information layout, access and interaction options. The CAD visualization yielded better performance, if users directly manipulated the object, but was inferior, if employed in a conventional static manner, i.e. inspecting only predefined views. An additional eye movement analysis revealed longer fixation durations and a stronger increase of task-relevant fixations over time when interacting with the CAD visualization. This suggests a more focused extraction and filtering of information. We conclude that the three-dimensional CAD visualization can be advantageous if its ability to manipulate is used. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

Three visualization approaches for communicating and exploring PIT tag data

USGS Publications Warehouse

Letcher, Benjamin; Walker, Jeffrey D.; O'Donnell, Matthew; Whiteley, Andrew R.; Nislow, Keith; Coombs, Jason

2018-01-01

As the number, size and complexity of ecological datasets has increased, narrative and interactive raw data visualizations have emerged as important tools for exploring and understanding these large datasets. As a demonstration, we developed three visualizations to communicate and explore passive integrated transponder tag data from two long-term field studies. We created three independent visualizations for the same dataset, allowing separate entry points for users with different goals and experience levels. The first visualization uses a narrative approach to introduce users to the study. The second visualization provides interactive cross-filters that allow users to explore multi-variate relationships in the dataset. The last visualization allows users to visualize the movement histories of individual fish within the stream network. This suite of visualization tools allows a progressive discovery of more detailed information and should make the data accessible to users with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests.

A concept-based interactive biomedical image retrieval approach using visualness and spatial information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahman, Md M.; Antani, Sameer K.; Demner-Fushman, Dina; Thoma, George R.

2015-03-01

This paper presents a novel approach to biomedical image retrieval by mapping image regions to local concepts and represent images in a weighted entropy-based concept feature space. The term concept refers to perceptually distinguishable visual patches that are identified locally in image regions and can be mapped to a glossary of imaging terms. Further, the visual significance (e.g., visualness) of concepts is measured as Shannon entropy of pixel values in image patches and is used to refine the feature vector. Moreover, the system can assist user in interactively select a Region-Of-Interest (ROI) and search for similar image ROIs. Further, a spatial verification step is used as a post-processing step to improve retrieval results based on location information. The hypothesis that such approaches would improve biomedical image retrieval, is validated through experiments on a data set of 450 lung CT images extracted from journal articles from four different collections.

Text Stream Trend Analysis using Multiscale Visual Analytics with Applications to Social Media Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Steed, Chad A; Beaver, Justin M; BogenII, Paul L.

In this paper, we introduce a new visual analytics system, called Matisse, that allows exploration of global trends in textual information streams with specific application to social media platforms. Despite the potential for real-time situational awareness using these services, interactive analysis of such semi-structured textual information is a challenge due to the high-throughput and high-velocity properties. Matisse addresses these challenges through the following contributions: (1) robust stream data management, (2) automated sen- timent/emotion analytics, (3) inferential temporal, geospatial, and term-frequency visualizations, and (4) a flexible drill-down interaction scheme that progresses from macroscale to microscale views. In addition to describing thesemore » contributions, our work-in-progress paper concludes with a practical case study focused on the analysis of Twitter 1% sample stream information captured during the week of the Boston Marathon bombings.« less

The roles of vocal and visual interactions in social learning zebra finches: A video playback experiment.

PubMed

Guillette, Lauren M; Healy, Susan D

2017-06-01

The transmission of information from an experienced demonstrator to a naïve observer often depends on characteristics of the demonstrator, such as familiarity, success or dominance status. Whether or not the demonstrator pays attention to and/or interacts with the observer may also affect social information acquisition or use by the observer. Here we used a video-demonstrator paradigm first to test whether video demonstrators have the same effect as using live demonstrators in zebra finches, and second, to test the importance of visual and vocal interactions between the demonstrator and observer on social information use by the observer. We found that female zebra finches copied novel food choices of male demonstrators they saw via live-streaming video while they did not consistently copy from the demonstrators when they were seen in playbacks of the same videos. Although naive observers copied in the absence of vocalizations by the demonstrator, as they copied from playback of videos with the sound off, females did not copy where there was a mis-match between the visual information provided by the video and vocal information from a live male that was out of sight. Taken together these results suggest that video demonstration is a useful methodology for testing social information transfer, at least in a foraging context, but more importantly, that social information use varies according to the vocal interactions, or lack thereof, between the observer and the demonstrator. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attention Increases Spike Count Correlations between Visual Cortical Areas.

PubMed

Ruff, Douglas A; Cohen, Marlene R

2016-07-13

Visual attention, which improves perception of attended locations or objects, has long been known to affect many aspects of the responses of neuronal populations in visual cortex. There are two nonmutually exclusive hypotheses concerning the neuronal mechanisms that underlie these perceptual improvements. The first hypothesis, that attention improves the information encoded by a population of neurons in a particular cortical area, has considerable physiological support. The second hypothesis is that attention improves perception by selectively communicating relevant visual information. This idea has been tested primarily by measuring interactions between neurons on very short timescales, which are mathematically nearly independent of neuronal interactions on longer timescales. We tested the hypothesis that attention changes the way visual information is communicated between cortical areas on longer timescales by recording simultaneously from neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) and the middle temporal area (MT) in rhesus monkeys. We used two independent and complementary approaches. Our correlative experiment showed that attention increases the trial-to-trial response variability that is shared between the two areas. In our causal experiment, we electrically microstimulated V1 and found that attention increased the effect of stimulation on MT responses. Together, our results suggest that attention affects both the way visual stimuli are encoded within a cortical area and the extent to which visual information is communicated between areas on behaviorally relevant timescales. Visual attention dramatically improves the perception of attended stimuli. Attention has long been thought to act by selecting relevant visual information for further processing. It has been hypothesized that this selection is accomplished by increasing communication between neurons that encode attended information in different cortical areas. We recorded simultaneously from neurons in primary visual cortex and the middle temporal area while rhesus monkeys performed an attention task. We found that attention increased shared variability between neurons in the two areas and that attention increased the effect of microstimulation in V1 on the firing rates of MT neurons. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that attention increases communication between neurons in different brain areas on behaviorally relevant timescales. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/367523-12$15.00/0.

Attention Increases Spike Count Correlations between Visual Cortical Areas

PubMed Central

Cohen, Marlene R.

2016-01-01

Visual attention, which improves perception of attended locations or objects, has long been known to affect many aspects of the responses of neuronal populations in visual cortex. There are two nonmutually exclusive hypotheses concerning the neuronal mechanisms that underlie these perceptual improvements. The first hypothesis, that attention improves the information encoded by a population of neurons in a particular cortical area, has considerable physiological support. The second hypothesis is that attention improves perception by selectively communicating relevant visual information. This idea has been tested primarily by measuring interactions between neurons on very short timescales, which are mathematically nearly independent of neuronal interactions on longer timescales. We tested the hypothesis that attention changes the way visual information is communicated between cortical areas on longer timescales by recording simultaneously from neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) and the middle temporal area (MT) in rhesus monkeys. We used two independent and complementary approaches. Our correlative experiment showed that attention increases the trial-to-trial response variability that is shared between the two areas. In our causal experiment, we electrically microstimulated V1 and found that attention increased the effect of stimulation on MT responses. Together, our results suggest that attention affects both the way visual stimuli are encoded within a cortical area and the extent to which visual information is communicated between areas on behaviorally relevant timescales. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Visual attention dramatically improves the perception of attended stimuli. Attention has long been thought to act by selecting relevant visual information for further processing. It has been hypothesized that this selection is accomplished by increasing communication between neurons that encode attended information in different cortical areas. We recorded simultaneously from neurons in primary visual cortex and the middle temporal area while rhesus monkeys performed an attention task. We found that attention increased shared variability between neurons in the two areas and that attention increased the effect of microstimulation in V1 on the firing rates of MT neurons. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that attention increases communication between neurons in different brain areas on behaviorally relevant timescales. PMID:27413161

High Performance Real-Time Visualization of Voluminous Scientific Data Through the NOAA Earth Information System (NEIS).

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stewart, J.; Hackathorn, E. J.; Joyce, J.; Smith, J. S.

2014-12-01

Within our community data volume is rapidly expanding. These data have limited value if one cannot interact or visualize the data in a timely manner. The scientific community needs the ability to dynamically visualize, analyze, and interact with these data along with other environmental data in real-time regardless of the physical location or data format. Within the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's), the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) is actively developing the NOAA Earth Information System (NEIS). Previously, the NEIS team investigated methods of data discovery and interoperability. The recent focus shifted to high performance real-time visualization allowing NEIS to bring massive amounts of 4-D data, including output from weather forecast models as well as data from different observations (surface obs, upper air, etc...) in one place. Our server side architecture provides a real-time stream processing system which utilizes server based NVIDIA Graphical Processing Units (GPU's) for data processing, wavelet based compression, and other preparation techniques for visualization, allows NEIS to minimize the bandwidth and latency for data delivery to end-users. Client side, users interact with NEIS services through the visualization application developed at ESRL called TerraViz. Terraviz is developed using the Unity game engine and takes advantage of the GPU's allowing a user to interact with large data sets in real time that might not have been possible before. Through these technologies, the NEIS team has improved accessibility to 'Big Data' along with providing tools allowing novel visualization and seamless integration of data across time and space regardless of data size, physical location, or data format. These capabilities provide the ability to see the global interactions and their importance for weather prediction. Additionally, they allow greater access than currently exists helping to foster scientific collaboration and new ideas. This presentation will provide an update of the recent enhancements of the NEIS architecture and visualization capabilities, challenges faced, as well as ongoing research activities related to this project.

Visualization of spatial-temporal data based on 3D virtual scene

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xianghong; Liu, Jiping; Wang, Yong; Bi, Junfang

2009-10-01

The main purpose of this paper is to realize the expression of the three-dimensional dynamic visualization of spatialtemporal data based on three-dimensional virtual scene, using three-dimensional visualization technology, and combining with GIS so that the people's abilities of cognizing time and space are enhanced and improved by designing dynamic symbol and interactive expression. Using particle systems, three-dimensional simulation, virtual reality and other visual means, we can simulate the situations produced by changing the spatial location and property information of geographical entities over time, then explore and analyze its movement and transformation rules by changing the interactive manner, and also replay history and forecast of future. In this paper, the main research object is the vehicle track and the typhoon path and spatial-temporal data, through three-dimensional dynamic simulation of its track, and realize its timely monitoring its trends and historical track replaying; according to visualization techniques of spatialtemporal data in Three-dimensional virtual scene, providing us with excellent spatial-temporal information cognitive instrument not only can add clarity to show spatial-temporal information of the changes and developments in the situation, but also be used for future development and changes in the prediction and deduction.

Cognitive processing in the primary visual cortex: from perception to memory.

PubMed

Supèr, Hans

2002-01-01

The primary visual cortex is the first cortical area of the visual system that receives information from the external visual world. Based on the receptive field characteristics of the neurons in this area, it has been assumed that the primary visual cortex is a pure sensory area extracting basic elements of the visual scene. This information is then subsequently further processed upstream in the higher-order visual areas and provides us with perception and storage of the visual environment. However, recent findings show that such neural implementations are observed in the primary visual cortex. These neural correlates are expressed by the modulated activity of the late response of a neuron to a stimulus, and most likely depend on recurrent interactions between several areas of the visual system. This favors the concept of a distributed nature of visual processing in perceptual organization.

Data Visualization Using Immersive Virtual Reality Tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cioc, Alexandru; Djorgovski, S. G.; Donalek, C.; Lawler, E.; Sauer, F.; Longo, G.

2013-01-01

The growing complexity of scientific data poses serious challenges for an effective visualization. Data sets, e.g., catalogs of objects detected in sky surveys, can have a very high dimensionality, ~ 100 - 1000. Visualizing such hyper-dimensional data parameter spaces is essentially impossible, but there are ways of visualizing up to ~ 10 dimensions in a pseudo-3D display. We have been experimenting with the emerging technologies of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a platform for a scientific, interactive, collaborative data visualization. Our initial experiments used the virtual world of Second Life, and more recently VR worlds based on its open source code, OpenSimulator. There we can visualize up to ~ 100,000 data points in ~ 7 - 8 dimensions (3 spatial and others encoded as shapes, colors, sizes, etc.), in an immersive virtual space where scientists can interact with their data and with each other. We are now developing a more scalable visualization environment using the popular (practically an emerging standard) Unity 3D Game Engine, coded using C#, JavaScript, and the Unity Scripting Language. This visualization tool can be used through a standard web browser, or a standalone browser of its own. Rather than merely plotting data points, the application creates interactive three-dimensional objects of various shapes, colors, and sizes, and of course the XYZ positions, encoding various dimensions of the parameter space, that can be associated interactively. Multiple users can navigate through this data space simultaneously, either with their own, independent vantage points, or with a shared view. At this stage ~ 100,000 data points can be easily visualized within seconds on a simple laptop. The displayed data points can contain linked information; e.g., upon a clicking on a data point, a webpage with additional information can be rendered within the 3D world. A range of functionalities has been already deployed, and more are being added. We expect to make this visualization tool freely available to the academic community within a few months, on an experimental (beta testing) basis.

Combining computational analyses and interactive visualization for document exploration and sensemaking in jigsaw.

PubMed

Görg, Carsten; Liu, Zhicheng; Kihm, Jaeyeon; Choo, Jaegul; Park, Haesun; Stasko, John

2013-10-01

Investigators across many disciplines and organizations must sift through large collections of text documents to understand and piece together information. Whether they are fighting crime, curing diseases, deciding what car to buy, or researching a new field, inevitably investigators will encounter text documents. Taking a visual analytics approach, we integrate multiple text analysis algorithms with a suite of interactive visualizations to provide a flexible and powerful environment that allows analysts to explore collections of documents while sensemaking. Our particular focus is on the process of integrating automated analyses with interactive visualizations in a smooth and fluid manner. We illustrate this integration through two example scenarios: an academic researcher examining InfoVis and VAST conference papers and a consumer exploring car reviews while pondering a purchase decision. Finally, we provide lessons learned toward the design and implementation of visual analytics systems for document exploration and understanding.

The Effect of Visual Information on the Manual Approach and Landing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wewerinke, P. H.

1982-01-01

The effect of visual information in combination with basic display information on the approach performance. A pre-experimental model analysis was performed in terms of the optimal control model. The resulting aircraft approach performance predictions were compared with the results of a moving base simulator program. The results illustrate that the model provides a meaningful description of the visual (scene) perception process involved in the complex (multi-variable, time varying) manual approach task with a useful predictive capability. The theoretical framework was shown to allow a straight-forward investigation of the complex interaction of a variety of task variables.

c-Mantic: A Cytoscape plugin for Semantic Web

EPA Science Inventory

Semantic Web tools can streamline the process of storing, analyzing and sharing biological information. Visualization is important for communicating such complex biological relationships. Here we use the flexibility and speed of the Cytoscape platform to interactively visualize s...

How virtual reality works: illusions of vision in "real" and virtual environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stark, Lawrence W.

1995-04-01

Visual illusions abound in normal vision--illusions of clarity and completeness, of continuity in time and space, of presence and vivacity--and are part and parcel of the visual world inwhich we live. These illusions are discussed in terms of the human visual system, with its high- resolution fovea, moved from point to point in the visual scene by rapid saccadic eye movements (EMs). This sampling of visual information is supplemented by a low-resolution, wide peripheral field of view, especially sensitive to motion. Cognitive-spatial models controlling perception, imagery, and 'seeing,' also control the EMs that shift the fovea in the Scanpath mode. These illusions provide for presence, the sense off being within an environment. They equally well lead to 'Telepresence,' the sense of being within a virtual display, especially if the operator is intensely interacting within an eye-hand and head-eye human-machine interface that provides for congruent visual and motor frames of reference. Interaction, immersion, and interest compel telepresence; intuitive functioning and engineered information flows can optimize human adaptation to the artificial new world of virtual reality, as virtual reality expands into entertainment, simulation, telerobotics, and scientific visualization and other professional work.

Exclusively visual analysis of classroom group interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tucker, Laura; Scherr, Rachel E.; Zickler, Todd; Mazur, Eric

2016-12-01

Large-scale audiovisual data that measure group learning are time consuming to collect and analyze. As an initial step towards scaling qualitative classroom observation, we qualitatively coded classroom video using an established coding scheme with and without its audio cues. We find that interrater reliability is as high when using visual data only—without audio—as when using both visual and audio data to code. Also, interrater reliability is high when comparing use of visual and audio data to visual-only data. We see a small bias to code interactions as group discussion when visual and audio data are used compared with video-only data. This work establishes that meaningful educational observation can be made through visual information alone. Further, it suggests that after initial work to create a coding scheme and validate it in each environment, computer-automated visual coding could drastically increase the breadth of qualitative studies and allow for meaningful educational analysis on a far greater scale.

The attentive brain: insights from developmental cognitive neuroscience.

PubMed

Amso, Dima; Scerif, Gaia

2015-10-01

Visual attention functions as a filter to select environmental information for learning and memory, making it the first step in the eventual cascade of thought and action systems. Here, we review studies of typical and atypical visual attention development and explain how they offer insights into the mechanisms of adult visual attention. We detail interactions between visual processing and visual attention, as well as the contribution of visual attention to memory. Finally, we discuss genetic mechanisms underlying attention disorders and how attention may be modified by training.

VisualCNA: a GUI for interactive constraint network analysis and protein engineering for improving thermostability.

PubMed

Rathi, Prakash Chandra; Mulnaes, Daniel; Gohlke, Holger

2015-07-15

Constraint network analysis (CNA) is a graph theory-based rigidity analysis approach for linking a biomolecule's structure, flexibility, (thermo)stability and function. Results from CNA are highly information-rich and require intuitive, synchronized and interactive visualization for a comprehensive analysis. We developed VisualCNA, an easy-to-use PyMOL plug-in that allows setup of CNA runs and analysis of CNA results linking plots with molecular graphics representations. From a practical viewpoint, the most striking feature of VisualCNA is that it facilitates interactive protein engineering aimed at improving thermostability. VisualCNA and its dependencies (CNA and FIRST software) are available free of charge under GPL and academic licenses, respectively. VisualCNA and CNA are available at http://cpclab.uni-duesseldorf.de/software; FIRST is available at http://flexweb.asu.edu. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

ViSEN: methodology and software for visualization of statistical epistasis networks

PubMed Central

Hu, Ting; Chen, Yuanzhu; Kiralis, Jeff W.; Moore, Jason H.

2013-01-01

The non-linear interaction effect among multiple genetic factors, i.e. epistasis, has been recognized as a key component in understanding the underlying genetic basis of complex human diseases and phenotypic traits. Due to the statistical and computational complexity, most epistasis studies are limited to interactions with an order of two. We developed ViSEN to analyze and visualize epistatic interactions of both two-way and three-way. ViSEN not only identifies strong interactions among pairs or trios of genetic attributes, but also provides a global interaction map that shows neighborhood and clustering structures. This visualized information could be very helpful to infer the underlying genetic architecture of complex diseases and to generate plausible hypotheses for further biological validations. ViSEN is implemented in Java and freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/visen/. PMID:23468157

Visuokinesthetic Perception of Hand Movement is Mediated by Cerebro–Cerebellar Interaction between the Left Cerebellum and Right Parietal Cortex

PubMed Central

Hagura, Nobuhiro; Oouchida, Yutaka; Aramaki, Yu; Okada, Tomohisa; Matsumura, Michikazu; Sadato, Norihiro

2009-01-01

Combination of visual and kinesthetic information is essential to perceive bodily movements. We conducted behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments to investigate the neuronal correlates of visuokinesthetic combination in perception of hand movement. Participants experienced illusory flexion movement of their hand elicited by tendon vibration while they viewed video-recorded flexion (congruent: CONG) or extension (incongruent: INCONG) motions of their hand. The amount of illusory experience was graded by the visual velocities only when visual information regarding hand motion was concordant with kinesthetic information (CONG). The left posterolateral cerebellum was specifically recruited under the CONG, and this left cerebellar activation was consistent for both left and right hands. The left cerebellar activity reflected the participants' intensity of illusory hand movement under the CONG, and we further showed that coupling of activity between the left cerebellum and the “right” parietal cortex emerges during this visuokinesthetic combination/perception. The “left” cerebellum, working with the anatomically connected high-order bodily region of the “right” parietal cortex, participates in online combination of exteroceptive (vision) and interoceptive (kinesthesia) information to perceive hand movement. The cerebro–cerebellar interaction may underlie updating of one's “body image,” when perceiving bodily movement from visual and kinesthetic information. PMID:18453537

Speakers of different languages process the visual world differently.

PubMed

Chabal, Sarah; Marian, Viorica

2015-06-01

Language and vision are highly interactive. Here we show that people activate language when they perceive the visual world, and that this language information impacts how speakers of different languages focus their attention. For example, when searching for an item (e.g., clock) in the same visual display, English and Spanish speakers look at different objects. Whereas English speakers searching for the clock also look at a cloud, Spanish speakers searching for the clock also look at a gift, because the Spanish names for gift (regalo) and clock (reloj) overlap phonologically. These different looking patterns emerge despite an absence of direct language input, showing that linguistic information is automatically activated by visual scene processing. We conclude that the varying linguistic information available to speakers of different languages affects visual perception, leading to differences in how the visual world is processed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Visualization of protein interaction networks: problems and solutions

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Visualization concerns the representation of data visually and is an important task in scientific research. Protein-protein interactions (PPI) are discovered using either wet lab techniques, such mass spectrometry, or in silico predictions tools, resulting in large collections of interactions stored in specialized databases. The set of all interactions of an organism forms a protein-protein interaction network (PIN) and is an important tool for studying the behaviour of the cell machinery. Since graphic representation of PINs may highlight important substructures, e.g. protein complexes, visualization is more and more used to study the underlying graph structure of PINs. Although graphs are well known data structures, there are different open problems regarding PINs visualization: the high number of nodes and connections, the heterogeneity of nodes (proteins) and edges (interactions), the possibility to annotate proteins and interactions with biological information extracted by ontologies (e.g. Gene Ontology) that enriches the PINs with semantic information, but complicates their visualization. Methods In these last years many software tools for the visualization of PINs have been developed. Initially thought for visualization only, some of them have been successively enriched with new functions for PPI data management and PIN analysis. The paper analyzes the main software tools for PINs visualization considering four main criteria: (i) technology, i.e. availability/license of the software and supported OS (Operating System) platforms; (ii) interoperability, i.e. ability to import/export networks in various formats, ability to export data in a graphic format, extensibility of the system, e.g. through plug-ins; (iii) visualization, i.e. supported layout and rendering algorithms and availability of parallel implementation; (iv) analysis, i.e. availability of network analysis functions, such as clustering or mining of the graph, and the possibility to interact with external databases. Results Currently, many tools are available and it is not easy for the users choosing one of them. Some tools offer sophisticated 2D and 3D network visualization making available many layout algorithms, others tools are more data-oriented and support integration of interaction data coming from different sources and data annotation. Finally, some specialistic tools are dedicated to the analysis of pathways and cellular processes and are oriented toward systems biology studies, where the dynamic aspects of the processes being studied are central. Conclusion A current trend is the deployment of open, extensible visualization tools (e.g. Cytoscape), that may be incrementally enriched by the interactomics community with novel and more powerful functions for PIN analysis, through the development of plug-ins. On the other hand, another emerging trend regards the efficient and parallel implementation of the visualization engine that may provide high interactivity and near real-time response time, as in NAViGaTOR. From a technological point of view, open-source, free and extensible tools, like Cytoscape, guarantee a long term sustainability due to the largeness of the developers and users communities, and provide a great flexibility since new functions are continuously added by the developer community through new plug-ins, but the emerging parallel, often closed-source tools like NAViGaTOR, can offer near real-time response time also in the analysis of very huge PINs. PMID:23368786

Visual information mining in remote sensing image archives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pelizzari, Andrea; Descargues, Vincent; Datcu, Mihai P.

2002-01-01

The present article focuses on the development of interactive exploratory tools for visually mining the image content in large remote sensing archives. Two aspects are treated: the iconic visualization of the global information in the archive and the progressive visualization of the image details. The proposed methods are integrated in the Image Information Mining (I2M) system. The images and image structure in the I2M system are indexed based on a probabilistic approach. The resulting links are managed by a relational data base. Both the intrinsic complexity of the observed images and the diversity of user requests result in a great number of associations in the data base. Thus new tools have been designed to visualize, in iconic representation the relationships created during a query or information mining operation: the visualization of the query results positioned on the geographical map, quick-looks gallery, visualization of the measure of goodness of the query, visualization of the image space for statistical evaluation purposes. Additionally the I2M system is enhanced with progressive detail visualization in order to allow better access for operator inspection. I2M is a three-tier Java architecture and is optimized for the Internet.

Integrating natural language processing and web GIS for interactive knowledge domain visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Du, Fangming

Recent years have seen a powerful shift towards data-rich environments throughout society. This has extended to a change in how the artifacts and products of scientific knowledge production can be analyzed and understood. Bottom-up approaches are on the rise that combine access to huge amounts of academic publications with advanced computer graphics and data processing tools, including natural language processing. Knowledge domain visualization is one of those multi-technology approaches, with its aim of turning domain-specific human knowledge into highly visual representations in order to better understand the structure and evolution of domain knowledge. For example, network visualizations built from co-author relations contained in academic publications can provide insight on how scholars collaborate with each other in one or multiple domains, and visualizations built from the text content of articles can help us understand the topical structure of knowledge domains. These knowledge domain visualizations need to support interactive viewing and exploration by users. Such spatialization efforts are increasingly looking to geography and GIS as a source of metaphors and practical technology solutions, even when non-georeferenced information is managed, analyzed, and visualized. When it comes to deploying spatialized representations online, web mapping and web GIS can provide practical technology solutions for interactive viewing of knowledge domain visualizations, from panning and zooming to the overlay of additional information. This thesis presents a novel combination of advanced natural language processing - in the form of topic modeling - with dimensionality reduction through self-organizing maps and the deployment of web mapping/GIS technology towards intuitive, GIS-like, exploration of a knowledge domain visualization. A complete workflow is proposed and implemented that processes any corpus of input text documents into a map form and leverages a web application framework to let users explore knowledge domain maps interactively. This workflow is implemented and demonstrated for a data set of more than 66,000 conference abstracts.

Exploiting visual search theory to infer social interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rota, Paolo; Dang-Nguyen, Duc-Tien; Conci, Nicola; Sebe, Nicu

2013-03-01

In this paper we propose a new method to infer human social interactions using typical techniques adopted in literature for visual search and information retrieval. The main piece of information we use to discriminate among different types of interactions is provided by proxemics cues acquired by a tracker, and used to distinguish between intentional and casual interactions. The proxemics information has been acquired through the analysis of two different metrics: on the one hand we observe the current distance between subjects, and on the other hand we measure the O-space synergy between subjects. The obtained values are taken at every time step over a temporal sliding window, and processed in the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) domain. The features are eventually merged into an unique array, and clustered using the K-means algorithm. The clusters are reorganized using a second larger temporal window into a Bag Of Words framework, so as to build the feature vector that will feed the SVM classifier.

Audio-visual affective expression recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Thomas S.; Zeng, Zhihong

2007-11-01

Automatic affective expression recognition has attracted more and more attention of researchers from different disciplines, which will significantly contribute to a new paradigm for human computer interaction (affect-sensitive interfaces, socially intelligent environments) and advance the research in the affect-related fields including psychology, psychiatry, and education. Multimodal information integration is a process that enables human to assess affective states robustly and flexibly. In order to understand the richness and subtleness of human emotion behavior, the computer should be able to integrate information from multiple sensors. We introduce in this paper our efforts toward machine understanding of audio-visual affective behavior, based on both deliberate and spontaneous displays. Some promising methods are presented to integrate information from both audio and visual modalities. Our experiments show the advantage of audio-visual fusion in affective expression recognition over audio-only or visual-only approaches.

Smart unattended sensor networks with scene understanding capabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuvich, Gary

2006-05-01

Unattended sensor systems are new technologies that are supposed to provide enhanced situation awareness to military and law enforcement agencies. A network of such sensors cannot be very effective in field conditions only if it can transmit visual information to human operators or alert them on motion. In the real field conditions, events may happen in many nodes of a network simultaneously. But the real number of control personnel is always limited, and attention of human operators can be simply attracted to particular network nodes, while more dangerous threat may be unnoticed at the same time in the other nodes. Sensor networks would be more effective if equipped with a system that is similar to human vision in its abilities to understand visual information. Human vision uses for that a rough but wide peripheral system that tracks motions and regions of interests, narrow but precise foveal vision that analyzes and recognizes objects in the center of selected region of interest, and visual intelligence that provides scene and object contexts and resolves ambiguity and uncertainty in the visual information. Biologically-inspired Network-Symbolic models convert image information into an 'understandable' Network-Symbolic format, which is similar to relational knowledge models. The equivalent of interaction between peripheral and foveal systems in the network-symbolic system is achieved via interaction between Visual and Object Buffers and the top-level knowledge system.

A novel visualization model for web search results.

PubMed

Nguyen, Tien N; Zhang, Jin

2006-01-01

This paper presents an interactive visualization system, named WebSearchViz, for visualizing the Web search results and acilitating users' navigation and exploration. The metaphor in our model is the solar system with its planets and asteroids revolving around the sun. Location, color, movement, and spatial distance of objects in the visual space are used to represent the semantic relationships between a query and relevant Web pages. Especially, the movement of objects and their speeds add a new dimension to the visual space, illustrating the degree of relevance among a query and Web search results in the context of users' subjects of interest. By interacting with the visual space, users are able to observe the semantic relevance between a query and a resulting Web page with respect to their subjects of interest, context information, or concern. Users' subjects of interest can be dynamically changed, redefined, added, or deleted from the visual space.

Envision: An interactive system for the management and visualization of large geophysical data sets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Searight, K. R.; Wojtowicz, D. P.; Walsh, J. E.; Pathi, S.; Bowman, K. P.; Wilhelmson, R. B.

1995-01-01

Envision is a software project at the University of Illinois and Texas A&M, funded by NASA's Applied Information Systems Research Project. It provides researchers in the geophysical sciences convenient ways to manage, browse, and visualize large observed or model data sets. Envision integrates data management, analysis, and visualization of geophysical data in an interactive environment. It employs commonly used standards in data formats, operating systems, networking, and graphics. It also attempts, wherever possible, to integrate with existing scientific visualization and analysis software. Envision has an easy-to-use graphical interface, distributed process components, and an extensible design. It is a public domain package, freely available to the scientific community.

Visualization techniques for computer network defense

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beaver, Justin M.; Steed, Chad A.; Patton, Robert M.; Cui, Xiaohui; Schultz, Matthew

2011-06-01

Effective visual analysis of computer network defense (CND) information is challenging due to the volume and complexity of both the raw and analyzed network data. A typical CND is comprised of multiple niche intrusion detection tools, each of which performs network data analysis and produces a unique alerting output. The state-of-the-practice in the situational awareness of CND data is the prevalent use of custom-developed scripts by Information Technology (IT) professionals to retrieve, organize, and understand potential threat events. We propose a new visual analytics framework, called the Oak Ridge Cyber Analytics (ORCA) system, for CND data that allows an operator to interact with all detection tool outputs simultaneously. Aggregated alert events are presented in multiple coordinated views with timeline, cluster, and swarm model analysis displays. These displays are complemented with both supervised and semi-supervised machine learning classifiers. The intent of the visual analytics framework is to improve CND situational awareness, to enable an analyst to quickly navigate and analyze thousands of detected events, and to combine sophisticated data analysis techniques with interactive visualization such that patterns of anomalous activities may be more easily identified and investigated.

VisIRR: A Visual Analytics System for Information Retrieval and Recommendation for Large-Scale Document Data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Choo, Jaegul; Kim, Hannah; Clarkson, Edward

In this paper, we present an interactive visual information retrieval and recommendation system, called VisIRR, for large-scale document discovery. VisIRR effectively combines the paradigms of (1) a passive pull through query processes for retrieval and (2) an active push that recommends items of potential interest to users based on their preferences. Equipped with an efficient dynamic query interface against a large-scale corpus, VisIRR organizes the retrieved documents into high-level topics and visualizes them in a 2D space, representing the relationships among the topics along with their keyword summary. In addition, based on interactive personalized preference feedback with regard to documents,more » VisIRR provides document recommendations from the entire corpus, which are beyond the retrieved sets. Such recommended documents are visualized in the same space as the retrieved documents, so that users can seamlessly analyze both existing and newly recommended ones. This article presents novel computational methods, which make these integrated representations and fast interactions possible for a large-scale document corpus. We illustrate how the system works by providing detailed usage scenarios. Finally, we present preliminary user study results for evaluating the effectiveness of the system.« less

VisIRR: A Visual Analytics System for Information Retrieval and Recommendation for Large-Scale Document Data

DOE PAGES

Choo, Jaegul; Kim, Hannah; Clarkson, Edward; ...

2018-01-31

In this paper, we present an interactive visual information retrieval and recommendation system, called VisIRR, for large-scale document discovery. VisIRR effectively combines the paradigms of (1) a passive pull through query processes for retrieval and (2) an active push that recommends items of potential interest to users based on their preferences. Equipped with an efficient dynamic query interface against a large-scale corpus, VisIRR organizes the retrieved documents into high-level topics and visualizes them in a 2D space, representing the relationships among the topics along with their keyword summary. In addition, based on interactive personalized preference feedback with regard to documents,more » VisIRR provides document recommendations from the entire corpus, which are beyond the retrieved sets. Such recommended documents are visualized in the same space as the retrieved documents, so that users can seamlessly analyze both existing and newly recommended ones. This article presents novel computational methods, which make these integrated representations and fast interactions possible for a large-scale document corpus. We illustrate how the system works by providing detailed usage scenarios. Finally, we present preliminary user study results for evaluating the effectiveness of the system.« less

Gestalten of today: early processing of visual contours and surfaces.

PubMed

Kovács, I

1996-12-01

While much is known about the specialized, parallel processing streams of low-level vision that extract primary visual cues, there is only limited knowledge about the dynamic interactions between them. How are the fragments, caught by local analyzers, assembled together to provide us with a unified percept? How are local discontinuities in texture, motion or depth evaluated with respect to object boundaries and surface properties? These questions are presented within the framework of orientation-specific spatial interactions of early vision. Key observations of psychophysics, anatomy and neurophysiology on interactions of various spatial and temporal ranges are reviewed. Aspects of the functional architecture and possible neural substrates of local orientation-specific interactions are discussed, underlining their role in the integration of information across the visual field, and particularly in contour integration. Examples are provided demonstrating that global context, such as contour closure and figure-ground assignment, affects these local interactions. It is illustrated that figure-ground assignment is realized early in visual processing, and that the pattern of early interactions also brings about an effective and sparse coding of visual shape. Finally, it is concluded that the underlying functional architecture is not only dynamic and context dependent, but the pattern of connectivity depends as much on past experience as on actual stimulation.

Effective color design for displays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

MacDonald, Lindsay W.

2002-06-01

Visual communication is a key aspect of human-computer interaction, which contributes to the satisfaction of user and application needs. For effective design of presentations on computer displays, color should be used in conjunction with the other visual variables. The general needs of graphic user interfaces are discussed, followed by five specific tasks with differing criteria for display color specification - advertising, text, information, visualization and imaging.

Touch influences perceived gloss

PubMed Central

Adams, Wendy J.; Kerrigan, Iona S.; Graf, Erich W.

2016-01-01

Identifying an object’s material properties supports recognition and action planning: we grasp objects according to how heavy, hard or slippery we expect them to be. Visual cues to material qualities such as gloss have recently received attention, but how they interact with haptic (touch) information has been largely overlooked. Here, we show that touch modulates gloss perception: objects that feel slippery are perceived as glossier (more shiny).Participants explored virtual objects that varied in look and feel. A discrimination paradigm (Experiment 1) revealed that observers integrate visual gloss with haptic information. Observers could easily detect an increase in glossiness when it was paired with a decrease in friction. In contrast, increased glossiness coupled with decreased slipperiness produced a small perceptual change: the visual and haptic changes counteracted each other. Subjective ratings (Experiment 2) reflected a similar interaction – slippery objects were rated as glossier and vice versa. The sensory system treats visual gloss and haptic friction as correlated cues to surface material. Although friction is not a perfect predictor of gloss, the visual system appears to know and use a probabilistic relationship between these variables to bias perception – a sensible strategy given the ambiguity of visual clues to gloss. PMID:26915492

Visual to Parametric Interaction (V2PI)

PubMed Central

Maiti, Dipayan; Endert, Alex; North, Chris

2013-01-01

Typical data visualizations result from linear pipelines that start by characterizing data using a model or algorithm to reduce the dimension and summarize structure, and end by displaying the data in a reduced dimensional form. Sensemaking may take place at the end of the pipeline when users have an opportunity to observe, digest, and internalize any information displayed. However, some visualizations mask meaningful data structures when model or algorithm constraints (e.g., parameter specifications) contradict information in the data. Yet, due to the linearity of the pipeline, users do not have a natural means to adjust the displays. In this paper, we present a framework for creating dynamic data displays that rely on both mechanistic data summaries and expert judgement. The key is that we develop both the theory and methods of a new human-data interaction to which we refer as “ Visual to Parametric Interaction” (V2PI). With V2PI, the pipeline becomes bi-directional in that users are embedded in the pipeline; users learn from visualizations and the visualizations adjust to expert judgement. We demonstrate the utility of V2PI and a bi-directional pipeline with two examples. PMID:23555552

Interactive SIGHT: textual access to simple bar charts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, Seniz; Oliver, David; Schwartz, Edward; Elzer, Stephanie; Carberry, Sandra; Mccoy, Kathleen F.; Chester, Daniel

2010-12-01

Information graphics, such as bar charts and line graphs, are an important component of many articles from popular media. The majority of such graphics have an intention (a high-level message) to communicate to the graph viewer. Since the intended message of a graphic is often not repeated in the accompanying text, graphics together with the textual segments contribute to the overall purpose of an article and cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, these visual displays are provided in a format which is not readily accessible to everyone. For example, individuals with sight impairments who use screen readers to listen to documents have limited access to the graphics. This article presents a new accessibility tool, the Interactive SIGHT (Summarizing Information GrapHics Textually) system, that is intended to enable visually impaired users to access the knowledge that one would gain from viewing information graphics found on the web. The current system, which is implemented as a browser extension that works on simple bar charts, can be invoked by a user via a keystroke combination while navigating the web. Once launched, Interactive SIGHT first provides a brief summary that conveys the underlying intention of a bar chart along with the chart's most significant and salient features, and then produces history-aware follow-up responses to provide further information about the chart upon request from the user. We present two user studies that were conducted with sighted and visually impaired users to determine how effective the initial summary and follow-up responses are in conveying the informational content of bar charts, and to evaluate how easy it is to use the system interface. The evaluation results are promising and indicate that the system responses are well-structured and enable visually impaired users to answer key questions about bar charts in an easy-to-use manner. Post-experimental interviews revealed that visually impaired participants were very satisfied with the system offering different options to access the content of a chart to meet their specific needs and that they would use Interactive SIGHT if it was publicly available so as not to have to ignore graphics on the web. Being a language based assistive technology designed to compensate for the lack of sight, our work paves the road for a stronger acceptance of natural language interfaces to graph interpretation that we believe will be of great benefit to the visually impaired community.

Image gathering and coding for digital restoration: Information efficiency and visual quality

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huck, Friedrich O.; John, Sarah; Mccormick, Judith A.; Narayanswamy, Ramkumar

1989-01-01

Image gathering and coding are commonly treated as tasks separate from each other and from the digital processing used to restore and enhance the images. The goal is to develop a method that allows us to assess quantitatively the combined performance of image gathering and coding for the digital restoration of images with high visual quality. Digital restoration is often interactive because visual quality depends on perceptual rather than mathematical considerations, and these considerations vary with the target, the application, and the observer. The approach is based on the theoretical treatment of image gathering as a communication channel (J. Opt. Soc. Am. A2, 1644(1985);5,285(1988). Initial results suggest that the practical upper limit of the information contained in the acquired image data range typically from approximately 2 to 4 binary information units (bifs) per sample, depending on the design of the image-gathering system. The associated information efficiency of the transmitted data (i.e., the ratio of information over data) ranges typically from approximately 0.3 to 0.5 bif per bit without coding to approximately 0.5 to 0.9 bif per bit with lossless predictive compression and Huffman coding. The visual quality that can be attained with interactive image restoration improves perceptibly as the available information increases to approximately 3 bifs per sample. However, the perceptual improvements that can be attained with further increases in information are very subtle and depend on the target and the desired enhancement.

Infants' prospective control during object manipulation in an uncertain environment.

PubMed

Gottwald, Janna M; Gredebäck, Gustaf

2015-08-01

This study investigates how infants use visual and sensorimotor information to prospectively control their actions. We gave 14-month-olds two objects of different weight and observed how high they were lifted, using a Qualisys Motion Capture System. In one condition, the two objects were visually distinct (different color condition) in another they were visually identical (same color condition). Lifting amplitudes of the first movement unit were analyzed in order to assess prospective control. Results demonstrate that infants lifted a light object higher than a heavy object, especially when vision could be used to assess weight (different color condition). When being confronted with two visually identical objects of different weight (same color condition), infants showed a different lifting pattern than what could be observed in the different color condition, expressed by a significant interaction effect between object weight and color condition on lifting amplitude. These results indicate that (a) visual information about object weight can be used to prospectively control lifting actions and that (b) infants are able to prospectively control their lifting actions even without visual information about object weight. We argue that infants, in the absence of reliable visual information about object weight, heighten their dependence on non-visual information (tactile, sensorimotor memory) in order to estimate weight and pre-adjust their lifting actions in a prospective manner.

Cal-Adapt: California's Climate Data Resource and Interactive Toolkit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomas, N.; Mukhtyar, S.; Wilhelm, S.; Galey, B.; Lehmer, E.

2016-12-01

Cal-Adapt is a web-based application that provides an interactive toolkit and information clearinghouse to help agencies, communities, local planners, resource managers, and the public understand climate change risks and impacts at the local level. The website offers interactive, visually compelling, and useful data visualization tools that show how climate change might affect California using downscaled continental climate data. Cal-Adapt is supporting California's Fourth Climate Change Assessment through providing access to the wealth of modeled and observed data and adaption-related information produced by California's scientific community. The site has been developed by UC Berkeley's Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF) in collaboration with the California Energy Commission's (CEC) Research Program. The Cal-Adapt website allows decision makers, scientists and residents of California to turn research results and climate projections into effective adaptation decisions and policies. Since its release to the public in June 2011, Cal-Adapt has been visited by more than 94,000 unique visitors from over 180 countries, all 50 U.S. states, and 689 California localities. We will present several key visualizations that have been employed by Cal-Adapt's users to support their efforts to understand local impacts of climate change, indicate the breadth of data available, and delineate specific use cases. Recently, CEC and GIF have been developing and releasing Cal-Adapt 2.0, which includes updates and enhancements that are increasing its ease of use, information value, visualization tools, and data accessibility. We showcase how Cal-Adapt is evolving in response to feedback from a variety of sources to present finer-resolution downscaled data, and offer an open API that allows other organization to access Cal-Adapt climate data and build domain specific visualization and planning tools. Through a combination of locally relevant information, visualization tools, and access to primary data, Cal-Adapt allows users to investigate how the climate is projected to change in their areas of interest.

Combining Multiple Forms Of Visual Information To Specify Contact Relations In Spatial Layout

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sedgwick, Hal A.

1990-03-01

An expert system, called Layout2, has been described, which models a subset of available visual information for spatial layout. The system is used to examine detailed interactions between multiple, partially redundant forms of information in an environment-centered geometrical model of an environment obeying certain rather general constraints. This paper discusses the extension of Layout2 to include generalized contact relations between surfaces. In an environment-centered model, the representation of viewer-centered distance is replaced by the representation of environmental location. This location information is propagated through the representation of the environment by a network of contact relations between contiguous surfaces. Perspective information interacts with other forms of information to specify these contact relations. The experimental study of human perception of contact relations in extended spatial layouts is also discussed. Differences between human results and Layout2 results reveal limitations in the human ability to register available information; they also point to the existence of certain forms of information not yet formalized in Layout2.

The Effectiveness of Creating a Sense of Community in Online Learning with Social Awareness Information

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mariano, Darren G.

2012-01-01

Online social interactions differ from face to face interactions and lack the non-verbal cues leading a learner to procrastinate, decreased motivation, feelings of isolation and high drop out rates. Existing research illustrates a need for social awareness information in online education, and this research studied the impact of the visual presence…

Biomedical image representation approach using visualness and spatial information in a concept feature space for interactive region-of-interest-based retrieval.

PubMed

Rahman, Md Mahmudur; Antani, Sameer K; Demner-Fushman, Dina; Thoma, George R

2015-10-01

This article presents an approach to biomedical image retrieval by mapping image regions to local concepts where images are represented in a weighted entropy-based concept feature space. The term "concept" refers to perceptually distinguishable visual patches that are identified locally in image regions and can be mapped to a glossary of imaging terms. Further, the visual significance (e.g., visualness) of concepts is measured as the Shannon entropy of pixel values in image patches and is used to refine the feature vector. Moreover, the system can assist the user in interactively selecting a region-of-interest (ROI) and searching for similar image ROIs. Further, a spatial verification step is used as a postprocessing step to improve retrieval results based on location information. The hypothesis that such approaches would improve biomedical image retrieval is validated through experiments on two different data sets, which are collected from open access biomedical literature.

imDEV: a graphical user interface to R multivariate analysis tools in Microsoft Excel

PubMed Central

Grapov, Dmitry; Newman, John W.

2012-01-01

Summary: Interactive modules for Data Exploration and Visualization (imDEV) is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet embedded application providing an integrated environment for the analysis of omics data through a user-friendly interface. Individual modules enables interactive and dynamic analyses of large data by interfacing R's multivariate statistics and highly customizable visualizations with the spreadsheet environment, aiding robust inferences and generating information-rich data visualizations. This tool provides access to multiple comparisons with false discovery correction, hierarchical clustering, principal and independent component analyses, partial least squares regression and discriminant analysis, through an intuitive interface for creating high-quality two- and a three-dimensional visualizations including scatter plot matrices, distribution plots, dendrograms, heat maps, biplots, trellis biplots and correlation networks. Availability and implementation: Freely available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/imdev/. Implemented in R and VBA and supported by Microsoft Excel (2003, 2007 and 2010). Contact: John.Newman@ars.usda.gov Supplementary Information: Installation instructions, tutorials and users manual are available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/imdev/. PMID:22815358

Biomedical image representation approach using visualness and spatial information in a concept feature space for interactive region-of-interest-based retrieval

PubMed Central

Rahman, Md. Mahmudur; Antani, Sameer K.; Demner-Fushman, Dina; Thoma, George R.

2015-01-01

Abstract. This article presents an approach to biomedical image retrieval by mapping image regions to local concepts where images are represented in a weighted entropy-based concept feature space. The term “concept” refers to perceptually distinguishable visual patches that are identified locally in image regions and can be mapped to a glossary of imaging terms. Further, the visual significance (e.g., visualness) of concepts is measured as the Shannon entropy of pixel values in image patches and is used to refine the feature vector. Moreover, the system can assist the user in interactively selecting a region-of-interest (ROI) and searching for similar image ROIs. Further, a spatial verification step is used as a postprocessing step to improve retrieval results based on location information. The hypothesis that such approaches would improve biomedical image retrieval is validated through experiments on two different data sets, which are collected from open access biomedical literature. PMID:26730398

Visualization and interaction tools for aerial photograph mosaics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandes, João Pedro; Fonseca, Alexandra; Pereira, Luís; Faria, Adriano; Figueira, Helder; Henriques, Inês; Garção, Rita; Câmara, António

1997-05-01

This paper describes the development of a digital spatial library based on mosaics of digital orthophotos, called Interactive Portugal, that will enable users both to retrieve geospatial information existing in the Portuguese National System for Geographic Information World Wide Web server, and to develop local databases connected to the main system. A set of navigation, interaction, and visualization tools are proposed and discussed. They include sketching, dynamic sketching, and navigation capabilities over the digital orthophotos mosaics. Main applications of this digital spatial library are pointed out and discussed, namely for education, professional, and tourism markets. Future developments are considered. These developments are related to user reactions, technological advancements, and projects that also aim at delivering and exploring digital imagery on the World Wide Web. Future capabilities for site selection and change detection are also considered.

#FluxFlow: Visual Analysis of Anomalous Information Spreading on Social Media.

PubMed

Zhao, Jian; Cao, Nan; Wen, Zhen; Song, Yale; Lin, Yu-Ru; Collins, Christopher

2014-12-01

We present FluxFlow, an interactive visual analysis system for revealing and analyzing anomalous information spreading in social media. Everyday, millions of messages are created, commented, and shared by people on social media websites, such as Twitter and Facebook. This provides valuable data for researchers and practitioners in many application domains, such as marketing, to inform decision-making. Distilling valuable social signals from the huge crowd's messages, however, is challenging, due to the heterogeneous and dynamic crowd behaviors. The challenge is rooted in data analysts' capability of discerning the anomalous information behaviors, such as the spreading of rumors or misinformation, from the rest that are more conventional patterns, such as popular topics and newsworthy events, in a timely fashion. FluxFlow incorporates advanced machine learning algorithms to detect anomalies, and offers a set of novel visualization designs for presenting the detected threads for deeper analysis. We evaluated FluxFlow with real datasets containing the Twitter feeds captured during significant events such as Hurricane Sandy. Through quantitative measurements of the algorithmic performance and qualitative interviews with domain experts, the results show that the back-end anomaly detection model is effective in identifying anomalous retweeting threads, and its front-end interactive visualizations are intuitive and useful for analysts to discover insights in data and comprehend the underlying analytical model.

Pycortex: an interactive surface visualizer for fMRI

PubMed Central

Gao, James S.; Huth, Alexander G.; Lescroart, Mark D.; Gallant, Jack L.

2015-01-01

Surface visualizations of fMRI provide a comprehensive view of cortical activity. However, surface visualizations are difficult to generate and most common visualization techniques rely on unnecessary interpolation which limits the fidelity of the resulting maps. Furthermore, it is difficult to understand the relationship between flattened cortical surfaces and the underlying 3D anatomy using tools available currently. To address these problems we have developed pycortex, a Python toolbox for interactive surface mapping and visualization. Pycortex exploits the power of modern graphics cards to sample volumetric data on a per-pixel basis, allowing dense and accurate mapping of the voxel grid across the surface. Anatomical and functional information can be projected onto the cortical surface. The surface can be inflated and flattened interactively, aiding interpretation of the correspondence between the anatomical surface and the flattened cortical sheet. The output of pycortex can be viewed using WebGL, a technology compatible with modern web browsers. This allows complex fMRI surface maps to be distributed broadly online without requiring installation of complex software. PMID:26483666

Vivaldi: visualization and validation of biomacromolecular NMR structures from the PDB.

PubMed

Hendrickx, Pieter M S; Gutmanas, Aleksandras; Kleywegt, Gerard J

2013-04-01

We describe Vivaldi (VIsualization and VALidation DIsplay; http://pdbe.org/vivaldi), a web-based service for the analysis, visualization, and validation of NMR structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Vivaldi provides access to model coordinates and several types of experimental NMR data using interactive visualization tools, augmented with structural annotations and model-validation information. The service presents information about the modeled NMR ensemble, validation of experimental chemical shifts, residual dipolar couplings, distance and dihedral angle constraints, as well as validation scores based on empirical knowledge and databases. Vivaldi was designed for both expert NMR spectroscopists and casual non-expert users who wish to obtain a better grasp of the information content and quality of NMR structures in the public archive. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Visual Environments for CFD Research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Watson, Val; George, Michael W. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

This viewgraph presentation gives an overview of the visual environments for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research. It includes details on critical needs from the future computer environment, features needed to attain this environment, prospects for changes in and the impact of the visualization revolution on the human-computer interface, human processing capabilities, limits of personal environment and the extension of that environment with computers. Information is given on the need for more 'visual' thinking (including instances of visual thinking), an evaluation of the alternate approaches for and levels of interactive computer graphics, a visual analysis of computational fluid dynamics, and an analysis of visualization software.

Improving visual spatial working memory in younger and older adults: effects of cross-modal cues.

PubMed

Curtis, Ashley F; Turner, Gary R; Park, Norman W; Murtha, Susan J E

2017-11-06

Spatially informative auditory and vibrotactile (cross-modal) cues can facilitate attention but little is known about how similar cues influence visual spatial working memory (WM) across the adult lifespan. We investigated the effects of cues (spatially informative or alerting pre-cues vs. no cues), cue modality (auditory vs. vibrotactile vs. visual), memory array size (four vs. six items), and maintenance delay (900 vs. 1800 ms) on visual spatial location WM recognition accuracy in younger adults (YA) and older adults (OA). We observed a significant interaction between spatially informative pre-cue type, array size, and delay. OA and YA benefitted equally from spatially informative pre-cues, suggesting that attentional orienting prior to WM encoding, regardless of cue modality, is preserved with age.  Contrary to predictions, alerting pre-cues generally impaired performance in both age groups, suggesting that maintaining a vigilant state of arousal by facilitating the alerting attention system does not help visual spatial location WM.

Interactive Visualization of Infrared Spectral Data: Synergy of Computation, Visualization, and Experiment for Learning Spectroscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lahti, Paul M.; Motyka, Eric J.; Lancashire, Robert J.

2000-05-01

A straightforward procedure is described to combine computation of molecular vibrational modes using commonly available molecular modeling programs with visualization of the modes using advanced features of the MDL Information Systems Inc. Chime World Wide Web browser plug-in. Minor editing of experimental spectra that are stored in the JCAMP-DX format allows linkage of IR spectral frequency ranges to Chime molecular display windows. The spectra and animation files can be combined by Hypertext Markup Language programming to allow interactive linkage between experimental spectra and computationally generated vibrational displays. Both the spectra and the molecular displays can be interactively manipulated to allow the user maximum control of the objects being viewed. This procedure should be very valuable not only for aiding students through visual linkage of spectra and various vibrational animations, but also by assisting them in learning the advantages and limitations of computational chemistry by comparison to experiment.

Visualization of Documents and Concepts in Neuroinformatics with the 3D-SE Viewer

PubMed Central

Naud, Antoine; Usui, Shiro; Ueda, Naonori; Taniguchi, Tatsuki

2007-01-01

A new interactive visualization tool is proposed for mining text data from various fields of neuroscience. Applications to several text datasets are presented to demonstrate the capability of the proposed interactive tool to visualize complex relationships between pairs of lexical entities (with some semantic contents) such as terms, keywords, posters, or papers' abstracts. Implemented as a Java applet, this tool is based on the spherical embedding (SE) algorithm, which was designed for the visualization of bipartite graphs. Items such as words and documents are linked on the basis of occurrence relationships, which can be represented in a bipartite graph. These items are visualized by embedding the vertices of the bipartite graph on spheres in a three-dimensional (3-D) space. The main advantage of the proposed visualization tool is that 3-D layouts can convey more information than planar or linear displays of items or graphs. Different kinds of information extracted from texts, such as keywords, indexing terms, or topics are visualized, allowing interactive browsing of various fields of research featured by keywords, topics, or research teams. A typical use of the 3D-SE viewer is quick browsing of topics displayed on a sphere, then selecting one or several item(s) displays links to related terms on another sphere representing, e.g., documents or abstracts, and provides direct online access to the document source in a database, such as the Visiome Platform or the SfN Annual Meeting. Developed as a Java applet, it operates as a tool on top of existing resources. PMID:18974802

Visualization of Documents and Concepts in Neuroinformatics with the 3D-SE Viewer.

PubMed

Naud, Antoine; Usui, Shiro; Ueda, Naonori; Taniguchi, Tatsuki

2007-01-01

A new interactive visualization tool is proposed for mining text data from various fields of neuroscience. Applications to several text datasets are presented to demonstrate the capability of the proposed interactive tool to visualize complex relationships between pairs of lexical entities (with some semantic contents) such as terms, keywords, posters, or papers' abstracts. Implemented as a Java applet, this tool is based on the spherical embedding (SE) algorithm, which was designed for the visualization of bipartite graphs. Items such as words and documents are linked on the basis of occurrence relationships, which can be represented in a bipartite graph. These items are visualized by embedding the vertices of the bipartite graph on spheres in a three-dimensional (3-D) space. The main advantage of the proposed visualization tool is that 3-D layouts can convey more information than planar or linear displays of items or graphs. Different kinds of information extracted from texts, such as keywords, indexing terms, or topics are visualized, allowing interactive browsing of various fields of research featured by keywords, topics, or research teams. A typical use of the 3D-SE viewer is quick browsing of topics displayed on a sphere, then selecting one or several item(s) displays links to related terms on another sphere representing, e.g., documents or abstracts, and provides direct online access to the document source in a database, such as the Visiome Platform or the SfN Annual Meeting. Developed as a Java applet, it operates as a tool on top of existing resources.

The Development and Evaluation of a Computer-Based System for Managing the Design and Pilot-Testing of Interactive Videodisc Programs. Training and Development Research Center, Project Number Forty-Three.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sayre, Scott Alan

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a computer-based system that would allow interactive video developers to integrate and manage the design components prior to production. These components of an interactive video (IVD) program include visual information in a variety of formats, audio information, and instructional techniques,…

Semantic Interaction for Sensemaking: Inferring Analytical Reasoning for Model Steering.

PubMed

Endert, A; Fiaux, P; North, C

2012-12-01

Visual analytic tools aim to support the cognitively demanding task of sensemaking. Their success often depends on the ability to leverage capabilities of mathematical models, visualization, and human intuition through flexible, usable, and expressive interactions. Spatially clustering data is one effective metaphor for users to explore similarity and relationships between information, adjusting the weighting of dimensions or characteristics of the dataset to observe the change in the spatial layout. Semantic interaction is an approach to user interaction in such spatializations that couples these parametric modifications of the clustering model with users' analytic operations on the data (e.g., direct document movement in the spatialization, highlighting text, search, etc.). In this paper, we present results of a user study exploring the ability of semantic interaction in a visual analytic prototype, ForceSPIRE, to support sensemaking. We found that semantic interaction captures the analytical reasoning of the user through keyword weighting, and aids the user in co-creating a spatialization based on the user's reasoning and intuition.

Top-down modulation of ventral occipito-temporal responses during visual word recognition.

PubMed

Twomey, Tae; Kawabata Duncan, Keith J; Price, Cathy J; Devlin, Joseph T

2011-04-01

Although interactivity is considered a fundamental principle of cognitive (and computational) models of reading, it has received far less attention in neural models of reading that instead focus on serial stages of feed-forward processing from visual input to orthographic processing to accessing the corresponding phonological and semantic information. In particular, the left ventral occipito-temporal (vOT) cortex is proposed to be the first stage where visual word recognition occurs prior to accessing nonvisual information such as semantics and phonology. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether there is evidence that activation in vOT is influenced top-down by the interaction of visual and nonvisual properties of the stimuli during visual word recognition tasks. Participants performed two different types of lexical decision tasks that focused on either visual or nonvisual properties of the word or word-like stimuli. The design allowed us to investigate how vOT activation during visual word recognition was influenced by a task change to the same stimuli and by a stimulus change during the same task. We found both stimulus- and task-driven modulation of vOT activation that can only be explained by top-down processing of nonvisual aspects of the task and stimuli. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that vOT acts as an interface linking visual form with nonvisual processing in both bottom up and top down directions. Such interactive processing at the neural level is in agreement with cognitive and computational models of reading but challenges some of the assumptions made by current neuro-anatomical models of reading. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Emotion and anxiety potentiate the way attention alters visual appearance.

PubMed

Barbot, Antoine; Carrasco, Marisa

2018-04-12

The ability to swiftly detect and prioritize the processing of relevant information around us is critical for the way we interact with our environment. Selective attention is a key mechanism that serves this purpose, improving performance in numerous visual tasks. Reflexively attending to sudden information helps detect impeding threat or danger, a possible reason why emotion modulates the way selective attention affects perception. For instance, the sudden appearance of a fearful face potentiates the effects of exogenous (involuntary, stimulus-driven) attention on performance. Internal states such as trait anxiety can also modulate the impact of attention on early visual processing. However, attention does not only improve performance; it also alters the way visual information appears to us, e.g. by enhancing perceived contrast. Here we show that emotion potentiates the effects of exogenous attention on both performance and perceived contrast. Moreover, we found that trait anxiety mediates these effects, with stronger influences of attention and emotion in anxious observers. Finally, changes in performance and appearance correlated with each other, likely reflecting common attentional modulations. Altogether, our findings show that emotion and anxiety interact with selective attention to truly alter how we see.

D Web Visualization of Environmental Information - Integration of Heterogeneous Data Sources when Providing Navigation and Interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Herman, L.; Řezník, T.

2015-08-01

3D information is essential for a number of applications used daily in various domains such as crisis management, energy management, urban planning, and cultural heritage, as well as pollution and noise mapping, etc. This paper is devoted to the issue of 3D modelling from the levels of buildings to cities. The theoretical sections comprise an analysis of cartographic principles for the 3D visualization of spatial data as well as a review of technologies and data formats used in the visualization of 3D models. Emphasis was placed on the verification of available web technologies; for example, X3DOM library was chosen for the implementation of a proof-of-concept web application. The created web application displays a 3D model of the city district of Nový Lískovec in Brno, the Czech Republic. The developed 3D visualization shows a terrain model, 3D buildings, noise pollution, and other related information. Attention was paid to the areas important for handling heterogeneous input data, the design of interactive functionality, and navigation assistants. The advantages, limitations, and future development of the proposed concept are discussed in the conclusions.

Thinking about the weather: How display salience and knowledge affect performance in a graphic inference task.

PubMed

Hegarty, Mary; Canham, Matt S; Fabrikant, Sara I

2010-01-01

Three experiments examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex visual displays (weather maps). Bottom-up effects of display design were investigated by manipulating the relative visual salience of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information across different maps. Top-down effects of domain knowledge were investigated by examining performance and eye fixations before and after participants learned relevant meteorological principles. Map design and knowledge interacted such that salience had no effect on performance before participants learned the meteorological principles; however, after learning, participants were more accurate if they viewed maps that made task-relevant information more visually salient. Effects of display design on task performance were somewhat dissociated from effects of display design on eye fixations. The results support a model in which eye fixations are directed primarily by top-down factors (task and domain knowledge). They suggest that good display design facilitates performance not just by guiding where viewers look in a complex display but also by facilitating processing of the visual features that represent task-relevant information at a given display location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Iowa Flood Information System: Towards Integrated Data Management, Analysis and Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.; Goska, R.; Mantilla, R.; Weber, L. J.; Young, N.

2012-04-01

The Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS) is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts both short-term and seasonal, flood-related data, information and interactive visualizations for communities in Iowa. The key element of the system's architecture is the notion of community. Locations of the communities, those near streams and rivers, define basin boundaries. The IFIS provides community-centric watershed and river characteristics, weather (rainfall) conditions, and streamflow data and visualization tools. Interactive interfaces allow access to inundation maps for different stage and return period values, and flooding scenarios with contributions from multiple rivers. Real-time and historical data of water levels, gauge heights, and rainfall conditions are available in the IFIS by streaming data from automated IFC bridge sensors, USGS stream gauges, NEXRAD radars, and NWS forecasts. Simple 2D and 3D interactive visualizations in the IFIS make the data more understandable to general public. Users are able to filter data sources for their communities and selected rivers. The data and information on IFIS is also accessible through web services and mobile applications. The IFIS is optimized for various browsers and screen sizes to provide access through multiple platforms including tablets and mobile devices. The IFIS includes a rainfall-runoff forecast model to provide a five-day flood risk estimate for around 500 communities in Iowa. Multiple view modes in the IFIS accommodate different user types from general public to researchers and decision makers by providing different level of tools and details. River view mode allows users to visualize data from multiple IFC bridge sensors and USGS stream gauges to follow flooding condition along a river. The IFIS will help communities make better-informed decisions on the occurrence of floods, and will alert communities in advance to help minimize damage of floods. This presentation provides an overview and live demonstration of the tools and interfaces in the IFIS developed to date to provide a platform for one-stop access to flood related data, visualizations, flood conditions, and forecast.

Tile-based parallel coordinates and its application in financial visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alsakran, Jamal; Zhao, Ye; Zhao, Xinlei

2010-01-01

Parallel coordinates technique has been widely used in information visualization applications and it has achieved great success in visualizing multivariate data and perceiving their trends. Nevertheless, visual clutter usually weakens or even diminishes its ability when the data size increases. In this paper, we first propose a tile-based parallel coordinates, where the plotting area is divided into rectangular tiles. Each tile stores an intersection density that counts the total number of polylines intersecting with that tile. Consequently, the intersection density is mapped to optical attributes, such as color and opacity, by interactive transfer functions. The method visualizes the polylines efficiently and informatively in accordance with the density distribution, and thus, reduces visual cluttering and promotes knowledge discovery. The interactivity of our method allows the user to instantaneously manipulate the tiles distribution and the transfer functions. Specifically, the classic parallel coordinates rendering is a special case of our method when each tile represents only one pixel. A case study on a real world data set, U.S. stock mutual fund data of year 2006, is presented to show the capability of our method in visually analyzing financial data. The presented visual analysis is conducted by an expert in the domain of finance. Our method gains the support from professionals in the finance field, they embrace it as a potential investment analysis tool for mutual fund managers, financial planners, and investors.

Neural Mechanisms of Information Storage in Visual Short-Term Memory

PubMed Central

Serences, John T.

2016-01-01

The capacity to briefly memorize fleeting sensory information supports visual search and behavioral interactions with relevant stimuli in the environment. Traditionally, studies investigating the neural basis of visual short term memory (STM) have focused on the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in exerting executive control over what information is stored and how it is adaptively used to guide behavior. However, the neural substrates that support the actual storage of content-specific information in STM are more controversial, with some attributing this function to PFC and others to the specialized areas of early visual cortex that initially encode incoming sensory stimuli. In contrast to these traditional views, I will review evidence suggesting that content-specific information can be flexibly maintained in areas across the cortical hierarchy ranging from early visual cortex to PFC. While the factors that determine exactly where content-specific information is represented are not yet entirely clear, recognizing the importance of task-demands and better understanding the operation of non-spiking neural codes may help to constrain new theories about how memories are maintained at different resolutions, across different timescales, and in the presence of distracting information. PMID:27668990

Neural mechanisms of information storage in visual short-term memory.

PubMed

Serences, John T

2016-11-01

The capacity to briefly memorize fleeting sensory information supports visual search and behavioral interactions with relevant stimuli in the environment. Traditionally, studies investigating the neural basis of visual short term memory (STM) have focused on the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in exerting executive control over what information is stored and how it is adaptively used to guide behavior. However, the neural substrates that support the actual storage of content-specific information in STM are more controversial, with some attributing this function to PFC and others to the specialized areas of early visual cortex that initially encode incoming sensory stimuli. In contrast to these traditional views, I will review evidence suggesting that content-specific information can be flexibly maintained in areas across the cortical hierarchy ranging from early visual cortex to PFC. While the factors that determine exactly where content-specific information is represented are not yet entirely clear, recognizing the importance of task-demands and better understanding the operation of non-spiking neural codes may help to constrain new theories about how memories are maintained at different resolutions, across different timescales, and in the presence of distracting information. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Empirical Comparison of Visualization Tools for Larger-Scale Network Analysis

DOE PAGES

Pavlopoulos, Georgios A.; Paez-Espino, David; Kyrpides, Nikos C.; ...

2017-07-18

Gene expression, signal transduction, protein/chemical interactions, biomedical literature cooccurrences, and other concepts are often captured in biological network representations where nodes represent a certain bioentity and edges the connections between them. While many tools to manipulate, visualize, and interactively explore such networks already exist, only few of them can scale up and follow today’s indisputable information growth. In this review, we shortly list a catalog of available network visualization tools and, from a user-experience point of view, we identify four candidate tools suitable for larger-scale network analysis, visualization, and exploration. Lastly, we comment on their strengths and their weaknesses andmore » empirically discuss their scalability, user friendliness, and postvisualization capabilities.« less

Visual mining geo-related data using pixel bar charts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hao, Ming C.; Keim, Daniel A.; Dayal, Umeshwar; Wright, Peter; Schneidewind, Joern

2005-03-01

A common approach to analyze geo-related data is using bar charts or x-y plots. They are intuitive and easy to use. But important information often gets lost. In this paper, we introduce a new interactive visualization technique called Geo Pixel Bar Charts, which combines the advantages of Pixel Bar Charts and interactive maps. This technique allows analysts to visualize large amounts of spatial data without aggregation and shows the geographical regions corresponding to the spatial data attribute at the same time. In this paper, we apply Geo Pixel Bar Charts to visually mining sales transactions and Internet usage from different locations. Our experimental results show the effectiveness of this technique for providing data distribution and exceptions from the map.

Empirical Comparison of Visualization Tools for Larger-Scale Network Analysis

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pavlopoulos, Georgios A.; Paez-Espino, David; Kyrpides, Nikos C.

Gene expression, signal transduction, protein/chemical interactions, biomedical literature cooccurrences, and other concepts are often captured in biological network representations where nodes represent a certain bioentity and edges the connections between them. While many tools to manipulate, visualize, and interactively explore such networks already exist, only few of them can scale up and follow today’s indisputable information growth. In this review, we shortly list a catalog of available network visualization tools and, from a user-experience point of view, we identify four candidate tools suitable for larger-scale network analysis, visualization, and exploration. Lastly, we comment on their strengths and their weaknesses andmore » empirically discuss their scalability, user friendliness, and postvisualization capabilities.« less

BURRITO: An Interactive Multi-Omic Tool for Visualizing Taxa–Function Relationships in Microbiome Data

PubMed Central

McNally, Colin P.; Eng, Alexander; Noecker, Cecilia; Gagne-Maynard, William C.; Borenstein, Elhanan

2018-01-01

The abundance of both taxonomic groups and gene categories in microbiome samples can now be easily assayed via various sequencing technologies, and visualized using a variety of software tools. However, the assemblage of taxa in the microbiome and its gene content are clearly linked, and tools for visualizing the relationship between these two facets of microbiome composition and for facilitating exploratory analysis of their co-variation are lacking. Here we introduce BURRITO, a web tool for interactive visualization of microbiome multi-omic data with paired taxonomic and functional information. BURRITO simultaneously visualizes the taxonomic and functional compositions of multiple samples and dynamically highlights relationships between taxa and functions to capture the underlying structure of these data. Users can browse for taxa and functions of interest and interactively explore the share of each function attributed to each taxon across samples. BURRITO supports multiple input formats for taxonomic and metagenomic data, allows adjustment of data granularity, and can export generated visualizations as static publication-ready formatted figures. In this paper, we describe the functionality of BURRITO, and provide illustrative examples of its utility for visualizing various trends in the relationship between the composition of taxa and functions in complex microbiomes. PMID:29545787

Feature-based memory-driven attentional capture: visual working memory content affects visual attention.

PubMed

Olivers, Christian N L; Meijer, Frank; Theeuwes, Jan

2006-10-01

In 7 experiments, the authors explored whether visual attention (the ability to select relevant visual information) and visual working memory (the ability to retain relevant visual information) share the same content representations. The presence of singleton distractors interfered more strongly with a visual search task when it was accompanied by an additional memory task. Singleton distractors interfered even more when they were identical or related to the object held in memory, but only when it was difficult to verbalize the memory content. Furthermore, this content-specific interaction occurred for features that were relevant to the memory task but not for irrelevant features of the same object or for once-remembered objects that could be forgotten. Finally, memory-related distractors attracted more eye movements but did not result in longer fixations. The results demonstrate memory-driven attentional capture on the basis of content-specific representations. Copyright 2006 APA.

Basic multisensory functions can be acquired after congenital visual pattern deprivation in humans.

PubMed

Putzar, Lisa; Gondan, Matthias; Röder, Brigitte

2012-01-01

People treated for bilateral congenital cataracts offer a model to study the influence of visual deprivation in early infancy on visual and multisensory development. We investigated cross-modal integration capabilities in cataract patients using a simple detection task that provided redundant information to two different senses. In both patients and controls, redundancy gains were consistent with coactivation models, indicating an integrated processing of modality-specific information. This finding is in contrast with recent studies showing impaired higher-level multisensory interactions in cataract patients. The present results suggest that basic cross-modal integrative processes for simple short stimuli do not depend on visual and/or crossmodal input since birth.

Speakers of Different Languages Process the Visual World Differently

PubMed Central

Chabal, Sarah; Marian, Viorica

2015-01-01

Language and vision are highly interactive. Here we show that people activate language when they perceive the visual world, and that this language information impacts how speakers of different languages focus their attention. For example, when searching for an item (e.g., clock) in the same visual display, English and Spanish speakers look at different objects. Whereas English speakers searching for the clock also look at a cloud, Spanish speakers searching for the clock also look at a gift, because the Spanish names for gift (regalo) and clock (reloj) overlap phonologically. These different looking patterns emerge despite an absence of direct linguistic input, showing that language is automatically activated by visual scene processing. We conclude that the varying linguistic information available to speakers of different languages affects visual perception, leading to differences in how the visual world is processed. PMID:26030171

The Rhetoric of Page Design: Making Meaning Visible.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dubinsky, James Michael

By teaching about and considering the elements of visual design, communication can be effected and the needs of the reader/user more effectively met. As anecdotal interaction with children indicates, information seems to be communicated more effectively when the rhetor incorporates visual elements. To increase the ability of the reader to…

Methods & Strategies: Unlocking the Power of Visual Communication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coleman, Julianne; McTigue, Erin

2013-01-01

This article reports on the usage of Interactive read-alouds to help students decode science diagrams and other visual information. Three short vignettes are featured from a second-grade teacher, illustrating the research-based recommendations for introducing students to the graphics of science within an authentic classroom activity--the…

Large High Resolution Displays for Co-Located Collaborative Sensemaking: Display Usage and Territoriality

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bradel, Lauren; Endert, Alexander; Koch, Kristen

2013-08-01

Large, high-resolution vertical displays carry the potential to increase the accuracy of collaborative sensemaking, given correctly designed visual analytics tools. From an exploratory user study using a fictional textual intelligence analysis task, we investigated how users interact with the display to construct spatial schemas and externalize information, as well as how they establish shared and private territories. We investigated the space management strategies of users partitioned by type of tool philosophy followed (visualization- or text-centric). We classified the types of territorial behavior exhibited in terms of how the users interacted with information on the display (integrated or independent workspaces). Next,more » we examined how territorial behavior impacted the common ground between the pairs of users. Finally, we offer design suggestions for building future co-located collaborative visual analytics tools specifically for use on large, high-resolution vertical displays.« less

Learning to match auditory and visual speech cues: social influences on acquisition of phonological categories.

PubMed

Altvater-Mackensen, Nicole; Grossmann, Tobias

2015-01-01

Infants' language exposure largely involves face-to-face interactions providing acoustic and visual speech cues but also social cues that might foster language learning. Yet, both audiovisual speech information and social information have so far received little attention in research on infants' early language development. Using a preferential looking paradigm, 44 German 6-month olds' ability to detect mismatches between concurrently presented auditory and visual native vowels was tested. Outcomes were related to mothers' speech style and interactive behavior assessed during free play with their infant, and to infant-specific factors assessed through a questionnaire. Results show that mothers' and infants' social behavior modulated infants' preference for matching audiovisual speech. Moreover, infants' audiovisual speech perception correlated with later vocabulary size, suggesting a lasting effect on language development. © 2014 The Authors. Child Development © 2014 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Technique and cue selection for graphical presentation of generic hyperdimensional data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howard, Lee M.; Burton, Robert P.

2013-12-01

Several presentation techniques have been created for visualization of data with more than three variables. Packages have been written, each of which implements a subset of these techniques. However, these packages generally fail to provide all the features needed by the user during the visualization process. Further, packages generally limit support for presentation techniques to a few techniques. A new package called Petrichor accommodates all necessary and useful features together in one system. Any presentation technique may be added easily through an extensible plugin system. Features are supported by a user interface that allows easy interaction with data. Annotations allow users to mark up visualizations and share information with others. By providing a hyperdimensional graphics package that easily accommodates presentation techniques and includes a complete set of features, including those that are rarely or never supported elsewhere, the user is provided with a tool that facilitates improved interaction with multivariate data to extract and disseminate information.

Interactive Learning Environment: Web-based Virtual Hydrological Simulation System using Augmented and Immersive Reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.

2014-12-01

Recent developments in internet technologies make it possible to manage and visualize large data on the web. Novel visualization techniques and interactive user interfaces allow users to create realistic environments, and interact with data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. The hydrological simulation system is a web-based 3D interactive learning environment for teaching hydrological processes and concepts. The simulation systems provides a visually striking platform with realistic terrain information, and water simulation. Students can create or load predefined scenarios, control environmental parameters, and evaluate environmental mitigation alternatives. The web-based simulation system provides an environment for students to learn about the hydrological processes (e.g. flooding and flood damage), and effects of development and human activity in the floodplain. The system utilizes latest web technologies and graphics processing unit (GPU) for water simulation and object collisions on the terrain. Users can access the system in three visualization modes including virtual reality, augmented reality, and immersive reality using heads-up display. The system provides various scenarios customized to fit the age and education level of various users. This presentation provides an overview of the web-based flood simulation system, and demonstrates the capabilities of the system for various visualization and interaction modes.

Maximizing Impact: Pairing interactive web visualizations with traditional print media

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Read, E. K.; Appling, A.; Carr, L.; De Cicco, L.; Read, J. S.; Walker, J. I.; Winslow, L. A.

2016-12-01

Our Nation's rapidly growing store of environmental data makes new demands on researchers: to take on increasingly broad-scale, societally relevant analyses and to rapidly communicate findings to the public. Interactive web-based data visualizations now commonly supplement or comprise journalism, and science journalism has followed suit. To maximize the impact of US Geological Survey (USGS) science, the USGS Office of Water Information Data Science team builds tools and products that combine traditional static research products (e.g., print journal articles) with web-based, interactive data visualizations that target non-scientific audiences. We developed a lightweight, open-source framework for web visualizations to reduce time to production. The framework provides templates for a data visualization workflow and the packaging of text, interactive figures, and images into an appealing web interface with standardized look and feel, usage tracking, and responsiveness. By partnering with subject matter experts to focus on timely, societally relevant issues, we use these tools to produce appealing visual stories targeting specific audiences, including managers, the general public, and scientists, on diverse topics including drought, microplastic pollution, and fisheries response to climate change. We will describe the collaborative and technical methodologies used; describe some examples of how it's worked; and challenges and opportunities for the future.

Lateral interactions and speed of information processing in highly functioning multiple sclerosis patients.

PubMed

Nagy, Helga; Bencsik, Krisztina; Rajda, Cecília; Benedek, Krisztina; Janáky, Márta; Beniczky, Sándor; Kéri, Szabolcs; Vécsei, László

2007-06-01

Visual impairment is a common feature of multiple sclerosis. The aim of this study was to investigate lateral interactions in the visual cortex of highly functioning patients with multiple sclerosis and to compare that with basic visual and neuropsychologic functions. Twenty-two young, visually unimpaired multiple sclerosis patients with minimal symptoms (Expanded Disability Status Scale <2) and 30 healthy controls subjects participated in the study. Lateral interactions were investigated with the flanker task, during which participants were asked to detect the orientation of a low-contrast Gabor patch (vertical or horizontal), flanked with 2 collinear or orthogonal Gabor patches. Stimulus exposure time was 40, 60, 80, and 100 ms. Digit span forward/backward, digit symbol, verbal fluency, and California Verbal Learning Test procedures were used for background neuropsychologic assessment. Results revealed that patients with multiple sclerosis showed intact visual contrast sensitivity and neuropsychologic functions, whereas orientation detection in the orthogonal condition was significantly impaired. At 40-ms exposure time, collinear flankers facilitated the orientation detection performance of the patients resulting in normal performance. In conclusion, the detection of briefly presented, low-contrast visual stimuli was selectively impaired in multiple sclerosis. Lateral interactions between target and flankers robustly facilitated target detection in the patient group.

Evidence for the activation of sensorimotor information during visual word recognition: the body-object interaction effect.

PubMed

Siakaluk, Paul D; Pexman, Penny M; Aguilera, Laura; Owen, William J; Sears, Christopher R

2008-01-01

We examined the effects of sensorimotor experience in two visual word recognition tasks. Body-object interaction (BOI) ratings were collected for a large set of words. These ratings assess perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. A set of high BOI words (e.g., mask) and a set of low BOI words (e.g., ship) were created, matched on imageability and concreteness. Facilitatory BOI effects were observed in lexical decision and phonological lexical decision tasks: responses were faster for high BOI words than for low BOI words. We discuss how our findings may be accounted for by (a) semantic feedback within the visual word recognition system, and (b) an embodied view of cognition (e.g., Barsalou's perceptual symbol systems theory), which proposes that semantic knowledge is grounded in sensorimotor interactions with the environment.

Typograph: Multiscale Spatial Exploration of Text Documents

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Endert, Alexander; Burtner, Edwin R.; Cramer, Nicholas O.

2013-10-06

Visualizing large document collections using a spatial layout of terms can enable quick overviews of information. These visual metaphors (e.g., word clouds, tag clouds, etc.) traditionally show a series of terms organized by space-filling algorithms. However, often lacking in these views is the ability to interactively explore the information to gain more detail, and the location and rendering of the terms are often not based on mathematical models that maintain relative distances from other information based on similarity metrics. In this paper, we present Typograph, a multi-scale spatial exploration visualization for large document collections. Based on the term-based visualization methods,more » Typograh enables multiple levels of detail (terms, phrases, snippets, and full documents) within the single spatialization. Further, the information is placed based on their relative similarity to other information to create the “near = similar” geographic metaphor. This paper discusses the design principles and functionality of Typograph and presents a use case analyzing Wikipedia to demonstrate usage.« less

Higher Level Visual Cortex Represents Retinotopic, Not Spatiotopic, Object Location

PubMed Central

Kanwisher, Nancy

2012-01-01

The crux of vision is to identify objects and determine their locations in the environment. Although initial visual representations are necessarily retinotopic (eye centered), interaction with the real world requires spatiotopic (absolute) location information. We asked whether higher level human visual cortex—important for stable object recognition and action—contains information about retinotopic and/or spatiotopic object position. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging multivariate pattern analysis techniques, we found information about both object category and object location in each of the ventral, dorsal, and early visual regions tested, replicating previous reports. By manipulating fixation position and stimulus position, we then tested whether these location representations were retinotopic or spatiotopic. Crucially, all location information was purely retinotopic. This pattern persisted when location information was irrelevant to the task, and even when spatiotopic (not retinotopic) stimulus position was explicitly emphasized. We also conducted a “searchlight” analysis across our entire scanned volume to explore additional cortex but again found predominantly retinotopic representations. The lack of explicit spatiotopic representations suggests that spatiotopic object position may instead be computed indirectly and continually reconstructed with each eye movement. Thus, despite our subjective impression that visual information is spatiotopic, even in higher level visual cortex, object location continues to be represented in retinotopic coordinates. PMID:22190434

Interactions between dorsal and ventral streams for controlling skilled grasp

PubMed Central

van Polanen, Vonne; Davare, Marco

2015-01-01

The two visual systems hypothesis suggests processing of visual information into two distinct routes in the brain: a dorsal stream for the control of actions and a ventral stream for the identification of objects. Recently, increasing evidence has shown that the dorsal and ventral streams are not strictly independent, but do interact with each other. In this paper, we argue that the interactions between dorsal and ventral streams are important for controlling complex object-oriented hand movements, especially skilled grasp. Anatomical studies have reported the existence of direct connections between dorsal and ventral stream areas. These physiological interconnections appear to be gradually more active as the precision demands of the grasp become higher. It is hypothesised that the dorsal stream needs to retrieve detailed information about object identity, stored in ventral stream areas, when the object properties require complex fine-tuning of the grasp. In turn, the ventral stream might receive up to date grasp-related information from dorsal stream areas to refine the object internal representation. Future research will provide direct evidence for which specific areas of the two streams interact, the timing of their interactions and in which behavioural context they occur. PMID:26169317

High resolution renderings and interactive visualization of the 2006 Huntington Beach experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Im, T.; Nayak, A.; Keen, C.; Samilo, D.; Matthews, J.

2006-12-01

The Visualization Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography investigates innovative ways to represent graphically interactive 3D virtual landscapes and to produce high resolution, high quality renderings of Earth sciences data and the sensors and instruments used to collect the data . Among the Visualization Center's most recent work is the visualization of the Huntington Beach experiment, a study launched in July 2006 by the Southern California Ocean Observing System (http://www.sccoos.org/) to record and synthesize data of the Huntington Beach coastal region. Researchers and students at the Visualization Center created visual presentations that combine bathymetric data provided by SCCOOS with USGS aerial photography and with 3D polygonal models of sensors created in Maya into an interactive 3D scene using the Fledermaus suite of visualization tools (http://www.ivs3d.com). In addition, the Visualization Center has produced high definition (HD) animations of SCCOOS sensor instruments (e.g. REMUS, drifters, spray glider, nearshore mooring, OCSD/USGS mooring and CDIP mooring) using the Maya modeling and animation software and rendered over multiple nodes of the OptIPuter Visualization Cluster at Scripps. These visualizations are aimed at providing researchers with a broader context of sensor locations relative to geologic characteristics, to promote their use as an educational resource for informal education settings and increasing public awareness, and also as an aid for researchers' proposals and presentations. These visualizations are available for download on the Visualization Center website at http://siovizcenter.ucsd.edu/sccoos/hb2006.php.

Auditory and visual interactions between the superior and inferior colliculi in the ferret.

PubMed

Stitt, Iain; Galindo-Leon, Edgar; Pieper, Florian; Hollensteiner, Karl J; Engler, Gerhard; Engel, Andreas K

2015-05-01

The integration of visual and auditory spatial information is important for building an accurate perception of the external world, but the fundamental mechanisms governing such audiovisual interaction have only partially been resolved. The earliest interface between auditory and visual processing pathways is in the midbrain, where the superior (SC) and inferior colliculi (IC) are reciprocally connected in an audiovisual loop. Here, we investigate the mechanisms of audiovisual interaction in the midbrain by recording neural signals from the SC and IC simultaneously in anesthetized ferrets. Visual stimuli reliably produced band-limited phase locking of IC local field potentials (LFPs) in two distinct frequency bands: 6-10 and 15-30 Hz. These visual LFP responses co-localized with robust auditory responses that were characteristic of the IC. Imaginary coherence analysis confirmed that visual responses in the IC were not volume-conducted signals from the neighboring SC. Visual responses in the IC occurred later than retinally driven superficial SC layers and earlier than deep SC layers that receive indirect visual inputs, suggesting that retinal inputs do not drive visually evoked responses in the IC. In addition, SC and IC recording sites with overlapping visual spatial receptive fields displayed stronger functional connectivity than sites with separate receptive fields, indicating that visual spatial maps are aligned across both midbrain structures. Reciprocal coupling between the IC and SC therefore probably serves the dynamic integration of visual and auditory representations of space. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Interactive 3D Mars Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Powell, Mark W.

2012-01-01

The Interactive 3D Mars Visualization system provides high-performance, immersive visualization of satellite and surface vehicle imagery of Mars. The software can be used in mission operations to provide the most accurate position information for the Mars rovers to date. When integrated into the mission data pipeline, this system allows mission planners to view the location of the rover on Mars to 0.01-meter accuracy with respect to satellite imagery, with dynamic updates to incorporate the latest position information. Given this information so early in the planning process, rover drivers are able to plan more accurate drive activities for the rover than ever before, increasing the execution of science activities significantly. Scientifically, this 3D mapping information puts all of the science analyses to date into geologic context on a daily basis instead of weeks or months, as was the norm prior to this contribution. This allows the science planners to judge the efficacy of their previously executed science observations much more efficiently, and achieve greater science return as a result. The Interactive 3D Mars surface view is a Mars terrain browsing software interface that encompasses the entire region of exploration for a Mars surface exploration mission. The view is interactive, allowing the user to pan in any direction by clicking and dragging, or to zoom in or out by scrolling the mouse or touchpad. This set currently includes tools for selecting a point of interest, and a ruler tool for displaying the distance between and positions of two points of interest. The mapping information can be harvested and shared through ubiquitous online mapping tools like Google Mars, NASA WorldWind, and Worldwide Telescope.

The Perception of Cooperativeness Without Any Visual or Auditory Communication.

PubMed

Chang, Dong-Seon; Burger, Franziska; Bülthoff, Heinrich H; de la Rosa, Stephan

2015-12-01

Perceiving social information such as the cooperativeness of another person is an important part of human interaction. But can people perceive the cooperativeness of others even without any visual or auditory information? In a novel experimental setup, we connected two people with a rope and made them accomplish a point-collecting task together while they could not see or hear each other. We observed a consistently emerging turn-taking behavior in the interactions and installed a confederate in a subsequent experiment who either minimized or maximized this behavior. Participants experienced this only through the haptic force-feedback of the rope and made evaluations about the confederate after each interaction. We found that perception of cooperativeness was significantly affected only by the manipulation of this turn-taking behavior. Gender- and size-related judgments also significantly differed. Our results suggest that people can perceive social information such as the cooperativeness of other people even in situations where possibilities for communication are minimal.

The Perception of Cooperativeness Without Any Visual or Auditory Communication

PubMed Central

Chang, Dong-Seon; Burger, Franziska; de la Rosa, Stephan

2015-01-01

Perceiving social information such as the cooperativeness of another person is an important part of human interaction. But can people perceive the cooperativeness of others even without any visual or auditory information? In a novel experimental setup, we connected two people with a rope and made them accomplish a point-collecting task together while they could not see or hear each other. We observed a consistently emerging turn-taking behavior in the interactions and installed a confederate in a subsequent experiment who either minimized or maximized this behavior. Participants experienced this only through the haptic force-feedback of the rope and made evaluations about the confederate after each interaction. We found that perception of cooperativeness was significantly affected only by the manipulation of this turn-taking behavior. Gender- and size-related judgments also significantly differed. Our results suggest that people can perceive social information such as the cooperativeness of other people even in situations where possibilities for communication are minimal. PMID:27551362

Interface Metaphors for Interactive Machine Learning

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jasper, Robert J.; Blaha, Leslie M.

To promote more interactive and dynamic machine learn- ing, we revisit the notion of user-interface metaphors. User-interface metaphors provide intuitive constructs for supporting user needs through interface design elements. A user-interface metaphor provides a visual or action pattern that leverages a user’s knowledge of another domain. Metaphors suggest both the visual representations that should be used in a display as well as the interactions that should be afforded to the user. We argue that user-interface metaphors can also offer a method of extracting interaction-based user feedback for use in machine learning. Metaphors offer indirect, context-based information that can be usedmore » in addition to explicit user inputs, such as user-provided labels. Implicit information from user interactions with metaphors can augment explicit user input for active learning paradigms. Or it might be leveraged in systems where explicit user inputs are more challenging to obtain. Each interaction with the metaphor provides an opportunity to gather data and learn. We argue this approach is especially important in streaming applications, where we desire machine learning systems that can adapt to dynamic, changing data.« less

Visualization Techniques for Computer Network Defense

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Beaver, Justin M; Steed, Chad A; Patton, Robert M

2011-01-01

Effective visual analysis of computer network defense (CND) information is challenging due to the volume and complexity of both the raw and analyzed network data. A typical CND is comprised of multiple niche intrusion detection tools, each of which performs network data analysis and produces a unique alerting output. The state-of-the-practice in the situational awareness of CND data is the prevalent use of custom-developed scripts by Information Technology (IT) professionals to retrieve, organize, and understand potential threat events. We propose a new visual analytics framework, called the Oak Ridge Cyber Analytics (ORCA) system, for CND data that allows an operatormore » to interact with all detection tool outputs simultaneously. Aggregated alert events are presented in multiple coordinated views with timeline, cluster, and swarm model analysis displays. These displays are complemented with both supervised and semi-supervised machine learning classifiers. The intent of the visual analytics framework is to improve CND situational awareness, to enable an analyst to quickly navigate and analyze thousands of detected events, and to combine sophisticated data analysis techniques with interactive visualization such that patterns of anomalous activities may be more easily identified and investigated.« less

An Interactive Visual Analytics Framework for Multi-Field Data in a Geo-Spatial Context

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhang, Zhiyuan; Tong, Xiaonan; McDonnell, Kevin T.

2013-04-01

Climate research produces a wealth of multivariate data. These data often have a geospatial reference and so it is of interest to show them within their geospatial context. One can consider this configuration as a multi field visualization problem, where the geospace provides the expanse of the field. However, there is a limit on the amount of multivariate information that can be fit within a certain spatial location, and the use of linked multivari ate information displays has previously been devised to bridge this gap. In this paper we focus on the interactions in the geographical display, present an implementationmore » that uses Google Earth, and demonstrate it within a tightly linked parallel coordinates display. Several other visual representations, such as pie and bar charts are integrated into the Google Earth display and can be interactively manipulated. Further, we also demonstrate new brushing and visualization techniques for parallel coordinates, such as fixedwindow brushing and correlationenhanced display. We conceived our system with a team of climate researchers, who already made a few important discov eries using it. This demonstrates our system’s great potential to enable scientific discoveries, possibly also in oth er domains where data have a geospatial reference.« less

Geo-Sandbox: An Interactive Geoscience Training Tool with Analytics to Better Understand Student Problem Solving Approaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Butt, N.; Pidlisecky, A.; Ganshorn, H.; Cockett, R.

2015-12-01

The software company 3 Point Science has developed three interactive learning programs designed to teach, test and practice visualization skills and geoscience concepts. A study was conducted with 21 geoscience students at the University of Calgary who participated in 2 hour sessions of software interaction and written pre and post-tests. Computer and SMART touch table interfaces were used to analyze user interaction, problem solving methods and visualization skills. By understanding and pinpointing user problem solving methods it is possible to reconstruct viewpoints and thought processes. This could allow us to give personalized feedback in real time, informing the user of problem solving tips and possible misconceptions.

Affective SSVEP BCI to effectively control 3D objects by using a prism array-based display

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mun, Sungchul; Park, Min-Chul

2014-06-01

3D objects with depth information can provide many benefits to users in education, surgery, and interactions. In particular, many studies have been done to enhance sense of reality in 3D interaction. Viewing and controlling stereoscopic 3D objects with crossed or uncrossed disparities, however, can cause visual fatigue due to the vergenceaccommodation conflict generally accepted in 3D research fields. In order to avoid the vergence-accommodation mismatch and provide a strong sense of presence to users, we apply a prism array-based display to presenting 3D objects. Emotional pictures were used as visual stimuli in control panels to increase information transfer rate and reduce false positives in controlling 3D objects. Involuntarily motivated selective attention by affective mechanism can enhance steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) amplitude and lead to increased interaction efficiency. More attentional resources are allocated to affective pictures with high valence and arousal levels than to normal visual stimuli such as white-and-black oscillating squares and checkerboards. Among representative BCI control components (i.e., eventrelated potentials (ERP), event-related (de)synchronization (ERD/ERS), and SSVEP), SSVEP-based BCI was chosen in the following reasons. It shows high information transfer rates and takes a few minutes for users to control BCI system while few electrodes are required for obtaining reliable brainwave signals enough to capture users' intention. The proposed BCI methods are expected to enhance sense of reality in 3D space without causing critical visual fatigue to occur. In addition, people who are very susceptible to (auto) stereoscopic 3D may be able to use the affective BCI.

Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information☆

PubMed Central

Healy, Kevin; McNally, Luke; Ruxton, Graeme D.; Cooper, Natalie; Jackson, Andrew L.

2013-01-01

Body size and metabolic rate both fundamentally constrain how species interact with their environment, and hence ultimately affect their niche. While many mechanisms leading to these constraints have been explored, their effects on the resolution at which temporal information is perceived have been largely overlooked. The visual system acts as a gateway to the dynamic environment and the relative resolution at which organisms are able to acquire and process visual information is likely to restrict their ability to interact with events around them. As both smaller size and higher metabolic rates should facilitate rapid behavioural responses, we hypothesized that these traits would favour perception of temporal change over finer timescales. Using critical flicker fusion frequency, the lowest frequency of flashing at which a flickering light source is perceived as constant, as a measure of the maximum rate of temporal information processing in the visual system, we carried out a phylogenetic comparative analysis of a wide range of vertebrates that supported this hypothesis. Our results have implications for the evolution of signalling systems and predator–prey interactions, and, combined with the strong influence that both body mass and metabolism have on a species' ecological niche, suggest that time perception may constitute an important and overlooked dimension of niche differentiation. PMID:24109147

Dynamic Stimuli And Active Processing In Human Visual Perception

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haber, Ralph N.

1990-03-01

Theories of visual perception traditionally have considered a static retinal image to be the starting point for processing; and has considered processing both to be passive and a literal translation of that frozen, two dimensional, pictorial image. This paper considers five problem areas in the analysis of human visually guided locomotion, in which the traditional approach is contrasted to newer ones that utilize dynamic definitions of stimulation, and an active perceiver: (1) differentiation between object motion and self motion, and among the various kinds of self motion (e.g., eyes only, head only, whole body, and their combinations); (2) the sources and contents of visual information that guide movement; (3) the acquisition and performance of perceptual motor skills; (4) the nature of spatial representations, percepts, and the perceived layout of space; and (5) and why the retinal image is a poor starting point for perceptual processing. These newer approaches argue that stimuli must be considered as dynamic: humans process the systematic changes in patterned light when objects move and when they themselves move. Furthermore, the processing of visual stimuli must be active and interactive, so that perceivers can construct panoramic and stable percepts from an interaction of stimulus information and expectancies of what is contained in the visual environment. These developments all suggest a very different approach to the computational analyses of object location and identification, and of the visual guidance of locomotion.

Solving the Shortage of STEM Personnel in Navy Laboratories: Strategic Plan for Navy Investments in STEM Education Targeted at the Navy After Next

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-06-01

mote interactions among K12 school systems; 2- and 4-year colleges and universities; informal science education organizations; . . . to promote... Science Center Proposal As ‘ informal ’ education centers i.e., Science and Technology Centers provide learn- ing outside the classroom that enhances...and complements ‘formal’ (classroom-based) learning. Informal science education uses visual, auditory, physical interactions, and ac- tivities to

D Modelling and Interactive Web-Based Visualization of Cultural Heritage Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koeva, M. N.

2016-06-01

Nowadays, there are rapid developments in the fields of photogrammetry, laser scanning, computer vision and robotics, together aiming to provide highly accurate 3D data that is useful for various applications. In recent years, various LiDAR and image-based techniques have been investigated for 3D modelling because of their opportunities for fast and accurate model generation. For cultural heritage preservation and the representation of objects that are important for tourism and their interactive visualization, 3D models are highly effective and intuitive for present-day users who have stringent requirements and high expectations. Depending on the complexity of the objects for the specific case, various technological methods can be applied. The selected objects in this particular research are located in Bulgaria - a country with thousands of years of history and cultural heritage dating back to ancient civilizations. This motivates the preservation, visualisation and recreation of undoubtedly valuable historical and architectural objects and places, which has always been a serious challenge for specialists in the field of cultural heritage. In the present research, comparative analyses regarding principles and technological processes needed for 3D modelling and visualization are presented. The recent problems, efforts and developments in interactive representation of precious objects and places in Bulgaria are presented. Three technologies based on real projects are described: (1) image-based modelling using a non-metric hand-held camera; (2) 3D visualization based on spherical panoramic images; (3) and 3D geometric and photorealistic modelling based on architectural CAD drawings. Their suitability for web-based visualization are demonstrated and compared. Moreover the possibilities for integration with additional information such as interactive maps, satellite imagery, sound, video and specific information for the objects are described. This comparative study discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these three approaches and their integration in multiple domains, such as web-based 3D city modelling, tourism and architectural 3D visualization. It was concluded that image-based modelling and panoramic visualisation are simple, fast and effective techniques suitable for simultaneous virtual representation of many objects. However, additional measurements or CAD information will be beneficial for obtaining higher accuracy.

[Preliminary construction of three-dimensional visual educational system for clinical dentistry based on world wide web webpage].

PubMed

Hu, Jian; Xu, Xiang-yang; Song, En-min; Tan, Hong-bao; Wang, Yi-ning

2009-09-01

To establish a new visual educational system of virtual reality for clinical dentistry based on world wide web (WWW) webpage in order to provide more three-dimensional multimedia resources to dental students and an online three-dimensional consulting system for patients. Based on computer graphics and three-dimensional webpage technologies, the software of 3Dsmax and Webmax were adopted in the system development. In the Windows environment, the architecture of whole system was established step by step, including three-dimensional model construction, three-dimensional scene setup, transplanting three-dimensional scene into webpage, reediting the virtual scene, realization of interactions within the webpage, initial test, and necessary adjustment. Five cases of three-dimensional interactive webpage for clinical dentistry were completed. The three-dimensional interactive webpage could be accessible through web browser on personal computer, and users could interact with the webpage through rotating, panning and zooming the virtual scene. It is technically feasible to implement the visual educational system of virtual reality for clinical dentistry based on WWW webpage. Information related to clinical dentistry can be transmitted properly, visually and interactively through three-dimensional webpage.

a Web-Based Platform for Visualizing Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Big Taxi Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiong, H.; Chen, L.; Gui, Z.

2017-09-01

With more and more vehicles equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS), access to large-scale taxi trajectory data has become increasingly easy. Taxis are valuable sensors and information associated with taxi trajectory can provide unprecedented insight into many aspects of city life. But analysing these data presents many challenges. Visualization of taxi data is an efficient way to represent its distributions and structures and reveal hidden patterns in the data. However, Most of the existing visualization systems have some shortcomings. On the one hand, the passenger loading status and speed information cannot be expressed. On the other hand, mono-visualization form limits the information presentation. In view of these problems, this paper designs and implements a visualization system in which we use colour and shape to indicate passenger loading status and speed information and integrate various forms of taxi visualization. The main work as follows: 1. Pre-processing and storing the taxi data into MongoDB database. 2. Visualization of hotspots for taxi pickup points. Through DBSCAN clustering algorithm, we cluster the extracted taxi passenger's pickup locations to produce passenger hotspots. 3. Visualizing the dynamic of taxi moving trajectory using interactive animation. We use a thinning algorithm to reduce the amount of data and design a preloading strategyto load the data smoothly. Colour and shape are used to visualize the taxi trajectory data.

The use of interactive technology in the classroom.

PubMed

Kresic, P

1999-01-01

This article discusses the benefits that clinical laboratory science students and instructors experienced through the use of and integration of computer technology, microscopes, and digitizing cameras. Patient specimens were obtained from the participating clinical affiliates, slides stained or wet mounts prepared, images viewed under the microscope, digitized, and after labeling, stored into an appropriate folder. The individual folders were labeled as Hematology, Microbiology, Chemistry, or Urinalysis. Students, after obtaining the necessary specimens and pertinent data, created case study presentations for class discussions. After two semesters of utilizing videomicroscopy/computer technology in the classroom, students and instructors realized the potential associated with the technology, namely, the vast increase in the amount of organized visual and scientific information accessible and the availability of collaborative and interactive learning to complement individualized instruction. The instructors, on the other hand, were able to provide a wider variety of visual information on individual bases. In conclusion, the appropriate use of technology can enhance students' learning and participation. Increased student involvement through the use of videomicroscopy and computer technology heightened their sense of pride and ownership in providing suitable information in case study presentations. Also, visualization provides students and educators with alternative methods of teaching/learning and increased retention of information.

Visual graph query formulation and exploration: a new perspective on information retrieval at the edge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kase, Sue E.; Vanni, Michelle; Knight, Joanne A.; Su, Yu; Yan, Xifeng

2016-05-01

Within operational environments decisions must be made quickly based on the information available. Identifying an appropriate knowledge base and accurately formulating a search query are critical tasks for decision-making effectiveness in dynamic situations. The spreading of graph data management tools to access large graph databases is a rapidly emerging research area of potential benefit to the intelligence community. A graph representation provides a natural way of modeling data in a wide variety of domains. Graph structures use nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. This research investigates the advantages of information search by graph query initiated by the analyst and interactively refined within the contextual dimensions of the answer space toward a solution. The paper introduces SLQ, a user-friendly graph querying system enabling the visual formulation of schemaless and structureless graph queries. SLQ is demonstrated with an intelligence analyst information search scenario focused on identifying individuals responsible for manufacturing a mosquito-hosted deadly virus. The scenario highlights the interactive construction of graph queries without prior training in complex query languages or graph databases, intuitive navigation through the problem space, and visualization of results in graphical format.

Informing the Design of Direct-to-Consumer Interactive Personal Genomics Reports

PubMed Central

Shaer, Orit; Okerlund, Johanna; Balestra, Martina; Stowell, Elizabeth; Ascher, Laura; Bi, Joanna; Schlenker, Claire; Ball, Madeleine

2015-01-01

Background In recent years, people who sought direct-to-consumer genetic testing services have been increasingly confronted with an unprecedented amount of personal genomic information, which influences their decisions, emotional state, and well-being. However, these users of direct-to-consumer genetic services, who vary in their education and interests, frequently have little relevant experience or tools for understanding, reasoning about, and interacting with their personal genomic data. Online interactive techniques can play a central role in making personal genomic data useful for these users. Objective We sought to (1) identify the needs of diverse users as they make sense of their personal genomic data, (2) consequently develop effective interactive visualizations of genomic trait data to address these users’ needs, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the developed visualizations in facilitating comprehension. Methods The first two user studies, conducted with 63 volunteers in the Personal Genome Project and with 36 personal genomic users who participated in a design workshop, respectively, employed surveys and interviews to identify the needs and expectations of diverse users. Building on the two initial studies, the third study was conducted with 730 Amazon Mechanical Turk users and employed a controlled experimental design to examine the effectiveness of different design interventions on user comprehension. Results The first two studies identified searching, comparing, sharing, and organizing data as fundamental to users’ understanding of personal genomic data. The third study demonstrated that interactive and visual design interventions could improve the understandability of personal genomic reports for consumers. In particular, results showed that a new interactive bubble chart visualization designed for the study resulted in the highest comprehension scores, as well as the highest perceived comprehension scores. These scores were significantly higher than scores received using the industry standard tabular reports currently used for communicating personal genomic information. Conclusions Drawing on multiple research methods and populations, the findings of the studies reported in this paper offer deep understanding of users’ needs and practices, and demonstrate that interactive online design interventions can improve the understandability of personal genomic reports for consumers. We discuss implications for designers and researchers. PMID:26070951

Informing the Design of Direct-to-Consumer Interactive Personal Genomics Reports.

PubMed

Shaer, Orit; Nov, Oded; Okerlund, Johanna; Balestra, Martina; Stowell, Elizabeth; Ascher, Laura; Bi, Joanna; Schlenker, Claire; Ball, Madeleine

2015-06-12

In recent years, people who sought direct-to-consumer genetic testing services have been increasingly confronted with an unprecedented amount of personal genomic information, which influences their decisions, emotional state, and well-being. However, these users of direct-to-consumer genetic services, who vary in their education and interests, frequently have little relevant experience or tools for understanding, reasoning about, and interacting with their personal genomic data. Online interactive techniques can play a central role in making personal genomic data useful for these users. We sought to (1) identify the needs of diverse users as they make sense of their personal genomic data, (2) consequently develop effective interactive visualizations of genomic trait data to address these users' needs, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the developed visualizations in facilitating comprehension. The first two user studies, conducted with 63 volunteers in the Personal Genome Project and with 36 personal genomic users who participated in a design workshop, respectively, employed surveys and interviews to identify the needs and expectations of diverse users. Building on the two initial studies, the third study was conducted with 730 Amazon Mechanical Turk users and employed a controlled experimental design to examine the effectiveness of different design interventions on user comprehension. The first two studies identified searching, comparing, sharing, and organizing data as fundamental to users' understanding of personal genomic data. The third study demonstrated that interactive and visual design interventions could improve the understandability of personal genomic reports for consumers. In particular, results showed that a new interactive bubble chart visualization designed for the study resulted in the highest comprehension scores, as well as the highest perceived comprehension scores. These scores were significantly higher than scores received using the industry standard tabular reports currently used for communicating personal genomic information. Drawing on multiple research methods and populations, the findings of the studies reported in this paper offer deep understanding of users' needs and practices, and demonstrate that interactive online design interventions can improve the understandability of personal genomic reports for consumers. We discuss implications for designers and researchers.

A Survey of Educational Uses of Molecular Visualization Freeware

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Craig, Paul A.; Michel, Lea Vacca; Bateman, Robert C.

2013-01-01

As biochemists, one of our most captivating teaching tools is the use of molecular visualization. It is a compelling medium that can be used to communicate structural information much more effectively with interactive animations than with static figures. We have conducted a survey to begin a systematic evaluation of the current classroom usage of…

Ontology-Driven Search and Triage: Design of a Web-Based Visual Interface for MEDLINE.

PubMed

Demelo, Jonathan; Parsons, Paul; Sedig, Kamran

2017-02-02

Diverse users need to search health and medical literature to satisfy open-ended goals such as making evidence-based decisions and updating their knowledge. However, doing so is challenging due to at least two major difficulties: (1) articulating information needs using accurate vocabulary and (2) dealing with large document sets returned from searches. Common search interfaces such as PubMed do not provide adequate support for exploratory search tasks. Our objective was to improve support for exploratory search tasks by combining two strategies in the design of an interactive visual interface by (1) using a formal ontology to help users build domain-specific knowledge and vocabulary and (2) providing multi-stage triaging support to help mitigate the information overload problem. We developed a Web-based tool, Ontology-Driven Visual Search and Triage Interface for MEDLINE (OVERT-MED), to test our design ideas. We implemented a custom searchable index of MEDLINE, which comprises approximately 25 million document citations. We chose a popular biomedical ontology, the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO), to test our solution to the vocabulary problem. We implemented multistage triaging support in OVERT-MED, with the aid of interactive visualization techniques, to help users deal with large document sets returned from searches. Formative evaluation suggests that the design features in OVERT-MED are helpful in addressing the two major difficulties described above. Using a formal ontology seems to help users articulate their information needs with more accurate vocabulary. In addition, multistage triaging combined with interactive visualizations shows promise in mitigating the information overload problem. Our strategies appear to be valuable in addressing the two major problems in exploratory search. Although we tested OVERT-MED with a particular ontology and document collection, we anticipate that our strategies can be transferred successfully to other contexts. ©Jonathan Demelo, Paul Parsons, Kamran Sedig. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (http://medinform.jmir.org), 02.02.2017.

Ontology-Driven Search and Triage: Design of a Web-Based Visual Interface for MEDLINE

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Background Diverse users need to search health and medical literature to satisfy open-ended goals such as making evidence-based decisions and updating their knowledge. However, doing so is challenging due to at least two major difficulties: (1) articulating information needs using accurate vocabulary and (2) dealing with large document sets returned from searches. Common search interfaces such as PubMed do not provide adequate support for exploratory search tasks. Objective Our objective was to improve support for exploratory search tasks by combining two strategies in the design of an interactive visual interface by (1) using a formal ontology to help users build domain-specific knowledge and vocabulary and (2) providing multi-stage triaging support to help mitigate the information overload problem. Methods We developed a Web-based tool, Ontology-Driven Visual Search and Triage Interface for MEDLINE (OVERT-MED), to test our design ideas. We implemented a custom searchable index of MEDLINE, which comprises approximately 25 million document citations. We chose a popular biomedical ontology, the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO), to test our solution to the vocabulary problem. We implemented multistage triaging support in OVERT-MED, with the aid of interactive visualization techniques, to help users deal with large document sets returned from searches. Results Formative evaluation suggests that the design features in OVERT-MED are helpful in addressing the two major difficulties described above. Using a formal ontology seems to help users articulate their information needs with more accurate vocabulary. In addition, multistage triaging combined with interactive visualizations shows promise in mitigating the information overload problem. Conclusions Our strategies appear to be valuable in addressing the two major problems in exploratory search. Although we tested OVERT-MED with a particular ontology and document collection, we anticipate that our strategies can be transferred successfully to other contexts. PMID:28153818

From Open Geographical Data to Tangible Maps: Improving the Accessibility of Maps for Visually Impaired People

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ducasse, J.; Macé, M.; Jouffrais, C.

2015-08-01

Visual maps must be transcribed into (interactive) raised-line maps to be accessible for visually impaired people. However, these tactile maps suffer from several shortcomings: they are long and expensive to produce, they cannot display a large amount of information, and they are not dynamically modifiable. A number of methods have been developed to automate the production of raised-line maps, but there is not yet any tactile map editor on the market. Tangible interactions proved to be an efficient way to help a visually impaired user manipulate spatial representations. Contrary to raised-line maps, tangible maps can be autonomously constructed and edited. In this paper, we present the scenarios and the main expected contributions of the AccessiMap project, which is based on the availability of many sources of open spatial data: 1/ facilitating the production of interactive tactile maps with the development of an open-source web-based editor; 2/ investigating the use of tangible interfaces for the autonomous construction and exploration of a map by a visually impaired user.

Task-technology fit of video telehealth for nurses in an outpatient clinic setting.

PubMed

Cady, Rhonda G; Finkelstein, Stanley M

2014-07-01

Incorporating telehealth into outpatient care delivery supports management of consumer health between clinic visits. Task-technology fit is a framework for understanding how technology helps and/or hinders a person during work processes. Evaluating the task-technology fit of video telehealth for personnel working in a pediatric outpatient clinic and providing care between clinic visits ensures the information provided matches the information needed to support work processes. The workflow of advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) care coordination provided via telephone and video telehealth was described and measured using a mixed-methods workflow analysis protocol that incorporated cognitive ethnography and time-motion study. Qualitative and quantitative results were merged and analyzed within the task-technology fit framework to determine the workflow fit of video telehealth for APRN care coordination. Incorporating video telehealth into APRN care coordination workflow provided visual information unavailable during telephone interactions. Despite additional tasks and interactions needed to obtain the visual information, APRN workflow efficiency, as measured by time, was not significantly changed. Analyzed within the task-technology fit framework, the increased visual information afforded by video telehealth supported the assessment and diagnostic information needs of the APRN. Telehealth must provide the right information to the right clinician at the right time. Evaluating task-technology fit using a mixed-methods protocol ensured rigorous analysis of fit within work processes and identified workflows that benefit most from the technology.

Assocplots: a Python package for static and interactive visualization of multiple-group GWAS results.

PubMed

Khramtsova, Ekaterina A; Stranger, Barbara E

2017-02-01

Over the last decade, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have generated vast amounts of analysis results, requiring development of novel tools for data visualization. Quantile–quantile (QQ) plots and Manhattan plots are classical tools which have been utilized to visually summarize GWAS results and identify genetic variants significantly associated with traits of interest. However, static visualizations are limiting in the information that can be shown. Here, we present Assocplots, a Python package for viewing and exploring GWAS results not only using classic static Manhattan and QQ plots, but also through a dynamic extension which allows to interactively visualize the relationships between GWAS results from multiple cohorts or studies. The Assocplots package is open source and distributed under the MIT license via GitHub (https://github.com/khramts/assocplots) along with examples, documentation and installation instructions. ekhramts@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu or bstranger@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu

Dynamics of cortico-subcortical cross-modal operations involved in audio-visual object detection in humans.

PubMed

Fort, Alexandra; Delpuech, Claude; Pernier, Jacques; Giard, Marie-Hélène

2002-10-01

Very recently, a number of neuroimaging studies in humans have begun to investigate the question of how the brain integrates information from different sensory modalities to form unified percepts. Already, intermodal neural processing appears to depend on the modalities of inputs or the nature (speech/non-speech) of information to be combined. Yet, the variety of paradigms, stimuli and technics used make it difficult to understand the relationships between the factors operating at the perceptual level and the underlying physiological processes. In a previous experiment, we used event-related potentials to describe the spatio-temporal organization of audio-visual interactions during a bimodal object recognition task. Here we examined the network of cross-modal interactions involved in simple detection of the same objects. The objects were defined either by unimodal auditory or visual features alone, or by the combination of the two features. As expected, subjects detected bimodal stimuli more rapidly than either unimodal stimuli. Combined analysis of potentials, scalp current densities and dipole modeling revealed several interaction patterns within the first 200 micro s post-stimulus: in occipito-parietal visual areas (45-85 micro s), in deep brain structures, possibly the superior colliculus (105-140 micro s), and in right temporo-frontal regions (170-185 micro s). These interactions differed from those found during object identification in sensory-specific areas and possibly in the superior colliculus, indicating that the neural operations governing multisensory integration depend crucially on the nature of the perceptual processes involved.

Data Discretization for Novel Relationship Discovery in Information Retrieval.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benoit, G.

2002-01-01

Describes an information retrieval, visualization, and manipulation model which offers the user multiple ways to exploit the retrieval set, based on weighted query terms, via an interactive interface. Outlines the mathematical model and describes an information retrieval application built on the model to search structured and full-text files.…

Information processing capacity while wearing personal protective eyewear.

PubMed

Wade, Chip; Davis, Jerry; Marzilli, Thomas S; Weimar, Wendi H

2006-08-15

It is difficult to overemphasize the function vision plays in information processing, specifically in maintaining postural control. Vision appears to be an immediate, effortless event; suggesting that eyes need only to be open to employ the visual information provided by the environment. This study is focused on investigating the effect of Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulated personal protective eyewear (29 CFR 1910.133) on physiological and cognitive factors associated with information processing capabilities. Twenty-one college students between the ages of 19 and 25 years were randomly tested in each of three eyewear conditions (control, new and artificially aged) on an inclined and horizontal support surface for auditory and visual stimulus reaction time. Data collection trials consisted of 50 randomly selected (25 auditory, 25 visual) stimuli over a 10-min surface-eyewear condition trial. Auditory stimulus reaction time was significantly affected by the surface by eyewear interaction (F2,40 = 7.4; p < 0.05). Similarly, analysis revealed a significant surface by eyewear interaction in reaction time following the visual stimulus (F2,40 = 21.7; p < 0.05). The current findings do not trivialize the importance of personal protective eyewear usage in an occupational setting; rather, they suggest the value of future research focused on the effect that personal protective eyewear has on the physiological, cognitive and biomechanical contributions to postural control. These findings suggest that while personal protective eyewear may serve to protect an individual from eye injury, an individual's use of such personal protective eyewear may have deleterious effects on sensory information associated with information processing and postural control.

Visual Working Memory Enhances the Neural Response to Matching Visual Input.

PubMed

Gayet, Surya; Guggenmos, Matthias; Christophel, Thomas B; Haynes, John-Dylan; Paffen, Chris L E; Van der Stigchel, Stefan; Sterzer, Philipp

2017-07-12

Visual working memory (VWM) is used to maintain visual information available for subsequent goal-directed behavior. The content of VWM has been shown to affect the behavioral response to concurrent visual input, suggesting that visual representations originating from VWM and from sensory input draw upon a shared neural substrate (i.e., a sensory recruitment stance on VWM storage). Here, we hypothesized that visual information maintained in VWM would enhance the neural response to concurrent visual input that matches the content of VWM. To test this hypothesis, we measured fMRI BOLD responses to task-irrelevant stimuli acquired from 15 human participants (three males) performing a concurrent delayed match-to-sample task. In this task, observers were sequentially presented with two shape stimuli and a retro-cue indicating which of the two shapes should be memorized for subsequent recognition. During the retention interval, a task-irrelevant shape (the probe) was briefly presented in the peripheral visual field, which could either match or mismatch the shape category of the memorized stimulus. We show that this probe stimulus elicited a stronger BOLD response, and allowed for increased shape-classification performance, when it matched rather than mismatched the concurrently memorized content, despite identical visual stimulation. Our results demonstrate that VWM enhances the neural response to concurrent visual input in a content-specific way. This finding is consistent with the view that neural populations involved in sensory processing are recruited for VWM storage, and it provides a common explanation for a plethora of behavioral studies in which VWM-matching visual input elicits a stronger behavioral and perceptual response. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans heavily rely on visual information to interact with their environment and frequently must memorize such information for later use. Visual working memory allows for maintaining such visual information in the mind's eye after termination of its retinal input. It is hypothesized that information maintained in visual working memory relies on the same neural populations that process visual input. Accordingly, the content of visual working memory is known to affect our conscious perception of concurrent visual input. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that visual input elicits an enhanced neural response when it matches the content of visual working memory, both in terms of signal strength and information content. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/376638-10$15.00/0.

Integration of auditory and visual communication information in the primate ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Sugihara, Tadashi; Diltz, Mark D; Averbeck, Bruno B; Romanski, Lizabeth M

2006-10-25

The integration of auditory and visual stimuli is crucial for recognizing objects, communicating effectively, and navigating through our complex world. Although the frontal lobes are involved in memory, communication, and language, there has been no evidence that the integration of communication information occurs at the single-cell level in the frontal lobes. Here, we show that neurons in the macaque ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) integrate audiovisual communication stimuli. The multisensory interactions included both enhancement and suppression of a predominantly auditory or a predominantly visual response, although multisensory suppression was the more common mode of response. The multisensory neurons were distributed across the VLPFC and within previously identified unimodal auditory and visual regions (O'Scalaidhe et al., 1997; Romanski and Goldman-Rakic, 2002). Thus, our study demonstrates, for the first time, that single prefrontal neurons integrate communication information from the auditory and visual domains, suggesting that these neurons are an important node in the cortical network responsible for communication.

Integration of Auditory and Visual Communication Information in the Primate Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex

PubMed Central

Sugihara, Tadashi; Diltz, Mark D.; Averbeck, Bruno B.; Romanski, Lizabeth M.

2009-01-01

The integration of auditory and visual stimuli is crucial for recognizing objects, communicating effectively, and navigating through our complex world. Although the frontal lobes are involved in memory, communication, and language, there has been no evidence that the integration of communication information occurs at the single-cell level in the frontal lobes. Here, we show that neurons in the macaque ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) integrate audiovisual communication stimuli. The multisensory interactions included both enhancement and suppression of a predominantly auditory or a predominantly visual response, although multisensory suppression was the more common mode of response. The multisensory neurons were distributed across the VLPFC and within previously identified unimodal auditory and visual regions (O’Scalaidhe et al., 1997; Romanski and Goldman-Rakic, 2002). Thus, our study demonstrates, for the first time, that single prefrontal neurons integrate communication information from the auditory and visual domains, suggesting that these neurons are an important node in the cortical network responsible for communication. PMID:17065454

A medical application integrating remote 3D visualization tools to access picture archiving and communication system on mobile devices.

PubMed

He, Longjun; Ming, Xing; Liu, Qian

2014-04-01

With computing capability and display size growing, the mobile device has been used as a tool to help clinicians view patient information and medical images anywhere and anytime. However, for direct interactive 3D visualization, which plays an important role in radiological diagnosis, the mobile device cannot provide a satisfactory quality of experience for radiologists. This paper developed a medical system that can get medical images from the picture archiving and communication system on the mobile device over the wireless network. In the proposed application, the mobile device got patient information and medical images through a proxy server connecting to the PACS server. Meanwhile, the proxy server integrated a range of 3D visualization techniques, including maximum intensity projection, multi-planar reconstruction and direct volume rendering, to providing shape, brightness, depth and location information generated from the original sectional images for radiologists. Furthermore, an algorithm that changes remote render parameters automatically to adapt to the network status was employed to improve the quality of experience. Finally, performance issues regarding the remote 3D visualization of the medical images over the wireless network of the proposed application were also discussed. The results demonstrated that this proposed medical application could provide a smooth interactive experience in the WLAN and 3G networks.

The visualCMAT: A web-server to select and interpret correlated mutations/co-evolving residues in protein families.

PubMed

Suplatov, Dmitry; Sharapova, Yana; Timonina, Daria; Kopylov, Kirill; Švedas, Vytas

2018-04-01

The visualCMAT web-server was designed to assist experimental research in the fields of protein/enzyme biochemistry, protein engineering, and drug discovery by providing an intuitive and easy-to-use interface to the analysis of correlated mutations/co-evolving residues. Sequence and structural information describing homologous proteins are used to predict correlated substitutions by the Mutual information-based CMAT approach, classify them into spatially close co-evolving pairs, which either form a direct physical contact or interact with the same ligand (e.g. a substrate or a crystallographic water molecule), and long-range correlations, annotate and rank binding sites on the protein surface by the presence of statistically significant co-evolving positions. The results of the visualCMAT are organized for a convenient visual analysis and can be downloaded to a local computer as a content-rich all-in-one PyMol session file with multiple layers of annotation corresponding to bioinformatic, statistical and structural analyses of the predicted co-evolution, or further studied online using the built-in interactive analysis tools. The online interactivity is implemented in HTML5 and therefore neither plugins nor Java are required. The visualCMAT web-server is integrated with the Mustguseal web-server capable of constructing large structure-guided sequence alignments of protein families and superfamilies using all available information about their structures and sequences in public databases. The visualCMAT web-server can be used to understand the relationship between structure and function in proteins, implemented at selecting hotspots and compensatory mutations for rational design and directed evolution experiments to produce novel enzymes with improved properties, and employed at studying the mechanism of selective ligand's binding and allosteric communication between topologically independent sites in protein structures. The web-server is freely available at https://biokinet.belozersky.msu.ru/visualcmat and there are no login requirements.

Orientation of selective effects of body tilt on visually induced perception of self-motion.

PubMed

Nakamura, S; Shimojo, S

1998-10-01

We examined the effect of body posture upon visually induced perception of self-motion (vection) with various angles of observer's tilt. The experiment indicated that the tilted body of observer could enhance perceived strength of vertical vection, while there was no effect of body tilt on horizontal vection. This result suggests that there is an interaction between the effects of visual and vestibular information on perception of self-motion.

Body sway reflects leadership in joint music performance.

PubMed

Chang, Andrew; Livingstone, Steven R; Bosnyak, Dan J; Trainor, Laurel J

2017-05-23

The cultural and technological achievements of the human species depend on complex social interactions. Nonverbal interpersonal coordination, or joint action, is a crucial element of social interaction, but the dynamics of nonverbal information flow among people are not well understood. We used joint music making in string quartets, a complex, naturalistic nonverbal behavior, as a model system. Using motion capture, we recorded body sway simultaneously in four musicians, which reflected real-time interpersonal information sharing. We used Granger causality to analyze predictive relationships among the motion time series of the players to determine the magnitude and direction of information flow among the players. We experimentally manipulated which musician was the leader (followers were not informed who was leading) and whether they could see each other, to investigate how these variables affect information flow. We found that assigned leaders exerted significantly greater influence on others and were less influenced by others compared with followers. This effect was present, whether or not they could see each other, but was enhanced with visual information, indicating that visual as well as auditory information is used in musical coordination. Importantly, performers' ratings of the "goodness" of their performances were positively correlated with the overall degree of body sway coupling, indicating that communication through body sway reflects perceived performance success. These results confirm that information sharing in a nonverbal joint action task occurs through both auditory and visual cues and that the dynamics of information flow are affected by changing group relationships.

Body sway reflects leadership in joint music performance

PubMed Central

Livingstone, Steven R.; Bosnyak, Dan J.; Trainor, Laurel J.

2017-01-01

The cultural and technological achievements of the human species depend on complex social interactions. Nonverbal interpersonal coordination, or joint action, is a crucial element of social interaction, but the dynamics of nonverbal information flow among people are not well understood. We used joint music making in string quartets, a complex, naturalistic nonverbal behavior, as a model system. Using motion capture, we recorded body sway simultaneously in four musicians, which reflected real-time interpersonal information sharing. We used Granger causality to analyze predictive relationships among the motion time series of the players to determine the magnitude and direction of information flow among the players. We experimentally manipulated which musician was the leader (followers were not informed who was leading) and whether they could see each other, to investigate how these variables affect information flow. We found that assigned leaders exerted significantly greater influence on others and were less influenced by others compared with followers. This effect was present, whether or not they could see each other, but was enhanced with visual information, indicating that visual as well as auditory information is used in musical coordination. Importantly, performers’ ratings of the “goodness” of their performances were positively correlated with the overall degree of body sway coupling, indicating that communication through body sway reflects perceived performance success. These results confirm that information sharing in a nonverbal joint action task occurs through both auditory and visual cues and that the dynamics of information flow are affected by changing group relationships. PMID:28484007

Progressive Visual Analytics: User-Driven Visual Exploration of In-Progress Analytics.

PubMed

Stolper, Charles D; Perer, Adam; Gotz, David

2014-12-01

As datasets grow and analytic algorithms become more complex, the typical workflow of analysts launching an analytic, waiting for it to complete, inspecting the results, and then re-Iaunching the computation with adjusted parameters is not realistic for many real-world tasks. This paper presents an alternative workflow, progressive visual analytics, which enables an analyst to inspect partial results of an algorithm as they become available and interact with the algorithm to prioritize subspaces of interest. Progressive visual analytics depends on adapting analytical algorithms to produce meaningful partial results and enable analyst intervention without sacrificing computational speed. The paradigm also depends on adapting information visualization techniques to incorporate the constantly refining results without overwhelming analysts and provide interactions to support an analyst directing the analytic. The contributions of this paper include: a description of the progressive visual analytics paradigm; design goals for both the algorithms and visualizations in progressive visual analytics systems; an example progressive visual analytics system (Progressive Insights) for analyzing common patterns in a collection of event sequences; and an evaluation of Progressive Insights and the progressive visual analytics paradigm by clinical researchers analyzing electronic medical records.

Survey of Visual and Force/Tactile Control of Robots for Physical Interaction in Spain

PubMed Central

Garcia, Gabriel J.; Corrales, Juan A.; Pomares, Jorge; Torres, Fernando

2009-01-01

Sensors provide robotic systems with the information required to perceive the changes that happen in unstructured environments and modify their actions accordingly. The robotic controllers which process and analyze this sensory information are usually based on three types of sensors (visual, force/torque and tactile) which identify the most widespread robotic control strategies: visual servoing control, force control and tactile control. This paper presents a detailed review on the sensor architectures, algorithmic techniques and applications which have been developed by Spanish researchers in order to implement these mono-sensor and multi-sensor controllers which combine several sensors. PMID:22303146

Typograph: Multiscale Spatial Exploration of Text Documents

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Endert, Alexander; Burtner, Edwin R.; Cramer, Nicholas O.

2013-12-01

Visualizing large document collections using a spatial layout of terms can enable quick overviews of information. However, these metaphors (e.g., word clouds, tag clouds, etc.) often lack interactivity to explore the information and the location and rendering of the terms are often not based on mathematical models that maintain relative distances from other information based on similarity metrics. Further, transitioning between levels of detail (i.e., from terms to full documents) can be challanging. In this paper, we present Typograph, a multi-scale spatial exploration visualization for large document collections. Based on the term-based visualization methods, Typograh enables multipel levels of detailmore » (terms, phrases, snippets, and full documents) within the single spatialization. Further, the information is placed based on their relative similarity to other information to create the “near = similar” geography metaphor. This paper discusses the design principles and functionality of Typograph and presents a use case analyzing Wikipedia to demonstrate usage.« less

XCluSim: a visual analytics tool for interactively comparing multiple clustering results of bioinformatics data

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Background Though cluster analysis has become a routine analytic task for bioinformatics research, it is still arduous for researchers to assess the quality of a clustering result. To select the best clustering method and its parameters for a dataset, researchers have to run multiple clustering algorithms and compare them. However, such a comparison task with multiple clustering results is cognitively demanding and laborious. Results In this paper, we present XCluSim, a visual analytics tool that enables users to interactively compare multiple clustering results based on the Visual Information Seeking Mantra. We build a taxonomy for categorizing existing techniques of clustering results visualization in terms of the Gestalt principles of grouping. Using the taxonomy, we choose the most appropriate interactive visualizations for presenting individual clustering results from different types of clustering algorithms. The efficacy of XCluSim is shown through case studies with a bioinformatician. Conclusions Compared to other relevant tools, XCluSim enables users to compare multiple clustering results in a more scalable manner. Moreover, XCluSim supports diverse clustering algorithms and dedicated visualizations and interactions for different types of clustering results, allowing more effective exploration of details on demand. Through case studies with a bioinformatics researcher, we received positive feedback on the functionalities of XCluSim, including its ability to help identify stably clustered items across multiple clustering results. PMID:26328893

A prototype system based on visual interactive SDM called VGC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jia, Zelu; Liu, Yaolin; Liu, Yanfang

2009-10-01

In many application domains, data is collected and referenced by its geo-spatial location. Spatial data mining, or the discovery of interesting patterns in such databases, is an important capability in the development of database systems. Spatial data mining recently emerges from a number of real applications, such as real-estate marketing, urban planning, weather forecasting, medical image analysis, road traffic accident analysis, etc. It demands for efficient solutions for many new, expensive, and complicated problems. For spatial data mining of large data sets to be effective, it is also important to include humans in the data exploration process and combine their flexibility, creativity, and general knowledge with the enormous storage capacity and computational power of today's computers. Visual spatial data mining applies human visual perception to the exploration of large data sets. Presenting data in an interactive, graphical form often fosters new insights, encouraging the information and validation of new hypotheses to the end of better problem-solving and gaining deeper domain knowledge. In this paper a visual interactive spatial data mining prototype system (visual geo-classify) based on VC++6.0 and MapObject2.0 are designed and developed, the basic algorithms of the spatial data mining is used decision tree and Bayesian networks, and data classify are used training and learning and the integration of the two to realize. The result indicates it's a practical and extensible visual interactive spatial data mining tool.

Top-down alpha oscillatory network interactions during visuospatial attention orienting.

PubMed

Doesburg, Sam M; Bedo, Nicolas; Ward, Lawrence M

2016-05-15

Neuroimaging and lesion studies indicate that visual attention is controlled by a distributed network of brain areas. The covert control of visuospatial attention has also been associated with retinotopic modulation of alpha-band oscillations within early visual cortex, which are thought to underlie inhibition of ignored areas of visual space. The relation between distributed networks mediating attention control and more focal oscillatory mechanisms, however, remains unclear. The present study evaluated the hypothesis that alpha-band, directed, network interactions within the attention control network are systematically modulated by the locus of visuospatial attention. We localized brain areas involved in visuospatial attention orienting using magnetoencephalographic (MEG) imaging and investigated alpha-band Granger-causal interactions among activated regions using narrow-band transfer entropy. The deployment of attention to one side of visual space was indexed by lateralization of alpha power changes between about 400ms and 700ms post-cue onset. The changes in alpha power were associated, in the same time period, with lateralization of anterior-to-posterior information flow in the alpha-band from various brain areas involved in attention control, including the anterior cingulate cortex, left middle and inferior frontal gyri, left superior temporal gyrus, and right insula, and inferior parietal lobule, to early visual areas. We interpreted these results to indicate that distributed network interactions mediated by alpha oscillations exert top-down influences on early visual cortex to modulate inhibition of processing for ignored areas of visual space. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Filling gaps in visual motion for target capture

PubMed Central

Bosco, Gianfranco; Delle Monache, Sergio; Gravano, Silvio; Indovina, Iole; La Scaleia, Barbara; Maffei, Vincenzo; Zago, Myrka; Lacquaniti, Francesco

2015-01-01

A remarkable challenge our brain must face constantly when interacting with the environment is represented by ambiguous and, at times, even missing sensory information. This is particularly compelling for visual information, being the main sensory system we rely upon to gather cues about the external world. It is not uncommon, for example, that objects catching our attention may disappear temporarily from view, occluded by visual obstacles in the foreground. Nevertheless, we are often able to keep our gaze on them throughout the occlusion or even catch them on the fly in the face of the transient lack of visual motion information. This implies that the brain can fill the gaps of missing sensory information by extrapolating the object motion through the occlusion. In recent years, much experimental evidence has been accumulated that both perceptual and motor processes exploit visual motion extrapolation mechanisms. Moreover, neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions potentially involved in the predictive representation of the occluded target motion. Within this framework, ocular pursuit and manual interceptive behavior have proven to be useful experimental models for investigating visual extrapolation mechanisms. Studies in these fields have pointed out that visual motion extrapolation processes depend on manifold information related to short-term memory representations of the target motion before the occlusion, as well as to longer term representations derived from previous experience with the environment. We will review recent oculomotor and manual interception literature to provide up-to-date views on the neurophysiological underpinnings of visual motion extrapolation. PMID:25755637

Filling gaps in visual motion for target capture.

PubMed

Bosco, Gianfranco; Monache, Sergio Delle; Gravano, Silvio; Indovina, Iole; La Scaleia, Barbara; Maffei, Vincenzo; Zago, Myrka; Lacquaniti, Francesco

2015-01-01

A remarkable challenge our brain must face constantly when interacting with the environment is represented by ambiguous and, at times, even missing sensory information. This is particularly compelling for visual information, being the main sensory system we rely upon to gather cues about the external world. It is not uncommon, for example, that objects catching our attention may disappear temporarily from view, occluded by visual obstacles in the foreground. Nevertheless, we are often able to keep our gaze on them throughout the occlusion or even catch them on the fly in the face of the transient lack of visual motion information. This implies that the brain can fill the gaps of missing sensory information by extrapolating the object motion through the occlusion. In recent years, much experimental evidence has been accumulated that both perceptual and motor processes exploit visual motion extrapolation mechanisms. Moreover, neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions potentially involved in the predictive representation of the occluded target motion. Within this framework, ocular pursuit and manual interceptive behavior have proven to be useful experimental models for investigating visual extrapolation mechanisms. Studies in these fields have pointed out that visual motion extrapolation processes depend on manifold information related to short-term memory representations of the target motion before the occlusion, as well as to longer term representations derived from previous experience with the environment. We will review recent oculomotor and manual interception literature to provide up-to-date views on the neurophysiological underpinnings of visual motion extrapolation.

Encoding strategies in self-initiated visual working memory.

PubMed

Magen, Hagit; Berger-Mandelbaum, Anat

2018-06-11

During a typical day, visual working memory (VWM) is recruited to temporarily maintain visual information. Although individuals often memorize external visual information provided to them, on many other occasions they memorize information they have constructed themselves. The latter aspect of memory, which we term self-initiated WM, is prevalent in everyday behavior but has largely been overlooked in the research literature. In the present study we employed a modified change detection task in which participants constructed the displays they memorized, by selecting three or four abstract shapes or real-world objects and placing them at three or four locations in a circular display of eight locations. Half of the trials included identical targets that participants could select. The results demonstrated consistent strategies across participants. To enhance memory performance, participants reported selecting abstract shapes they could verbalize, but they preferred real-world objects with distinct visual features. Furthermore, participants constructed structured memory displays, most frequently based on the Gestalt organization cue of symmetry, and to a lesser extent on cues of proximity and similarity. When identical items were selected, participants mostly placed them in close proximity, demonstrating the construction of configurations based on the interaction between several Gestalt cues. The present results are consistent with recent findings in VWM, showing that memory for visual displays based on Gestalt organization cues can benefit VWM, suggesting that individuals have access to metacognitive knowledge on the benefit of structure in VWM. More generally, this study demonstrates how individuals interact with the world by actively structuring their surroundings to enhance performance.

Interactions of attention, emotion and motivation.

PubMed

Raymond, Jane

2009-01-01

Although successful visually guided action begins with sensory processes and ends with motor control, the intervening processes related to the appropriate selection of information for processing are especially critical because of the brain's limited capacity to handle information. Three important mechanisms--attention, emotion and motivation--contribute to the prioritization and selection of information. In this chapter, the interplay between these systems is discussed with emphasis placed on interactions between attention (or immediate task relevance of stimuli) and emotion (or affective evaluation of stimuli), and between attention and motivation (or the predicted value of stimuli). Although numerous studies have shown that emotional stimuli modulate mechanisms of selective attention in humans, little work has been directed at exploring whether such interactions can be reciprocal, that is, whether attention can influence emotional response. Recent work on this question (showing that distracting information is typically devalued upon later encounters) is reviewed in the first half of the chapter. In the second half, some recent experiments exploring how prior value-prediction learning (i.e., learning to associate potential outcomes, good or bad, with specific stimuli) plays a role in visual selection and conscious perception. The results indicate that some aspects of motivation act on selection independently of traditionally defined attention and other aspects interact with it.

Future of Hydroinformatics: Towards Open, Integrated and Interactive Online Platforms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.

2012-12-01

Hydroinformatics is a domain of science and technology dealing with the management of information in the field of hydrology (IWA, 2011). There is the need for innovative solutions to the challenges towards open information, integration, and communication in the Internet. This presentation provides an overview of the trends and challenges in the future of hydroinformatics, and demonstrates an information system, Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS), developed within the light of these challenges. The IFIS is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts both short-term and seasonal, flood-related data, information and interactive visualizations for communities in Iowa. The key element of the system's architecture is the notion of community. Locations of the communities, those near streams and rivers, define basin boundaries. The IFIS provides community-centric watershed and river characteristics, weather (rainfall) conditions, and streamflow data and visualization tools. Interactive interfaces allow access to inundation maps for different stage and return period values, and flooding scenarios with contributions from multiple rivers. Real-time and historical data of water levels, gauge heights, and rainfall conditions are available in the IFIS by streaming data from automated IFC bridge sensors, USGS stream gauges, NEXRAD radars, and NWS forecasts. 2D and 3D interactive visualizations in the IFIS make the data more understandable to general public. Users are able to filter data sources for their communities and selected rivers. The data and information on IFIS is also accessible through web services and mobile applications. The IFIS is optimized for various browsers and screen sizes to provide access through multiple platforms including tablets and mobile devices. The IFIS includes a rainfall-runoff forecast model to provide a five-day flood risk estimate for more than 1000 communities in Iowa. Multiple view modes in the IFIS accommodate different user types from general public to researchers and decision makers by providing different level of tools and details. River view mode allows users to visualize data from multiple IFC bridge sensors and USGS stream gauges to follow flooding condition along a river. The IFIS will help communities make better-informed decisions on the occurrence of floods, and will alert communities in advance to help minimize damage of floods.

Is lower peripheral information weighted differently as a function of step number during step climbing?

PubMed

Graci, Valentina; Rabuffetti, Marco; Frigo, Carlo; Ferrarin, Maurizio

2017-02-01

The importance of peripheral visual information during stair climbing and how peripheral visual information is weighted as a function of step number during step climbing is unclear. Previous authors postulated that the knowledge of predictable characteristics of the steps may decrease reliance on foveal vision and transfer the online visual guidance of stair climbing to peripheral vision. Hence the aim of this study was to investigate if and how the occlusion of the lower peripheral visual field influenced stair climbing and if peripheral visual information was weighted differently between steps. Ten young adult male participants ascended a 5-step staircase under 2 visual conditions: full vision (FV) and lower visual occlusion (LO). Kinematic data (100Hz) were collected. The effect of Vision and Step condition on vertical forefoot clearance was examined with a Repeated Measures 2-way ANOVA. Tukey's HSD test was used for post-hoc comparisons. A significant interaction Vision x Step and main effect of Step were found (p<=0.04): vertical forefoot clearance was greater in LO compared to FV condition only on the 1st and the 2nd steps (p<0.013) and on the last step compared to the other steps (p<0.01). These findings suggest that online peripheral visual information is more relevant when negotiating the first two steps, rather than the end of a staircase and that the steps subsequent the first few ones may require different information likely based on proprioception or working memory of the step height. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Differential patterns of 2D location versus depth decoding along the visual hierarchy.

PubMed

Finlayson, Nonie J; Zhang, Xiaoli; Golomb, Julie D

2017-02-15

Visual information is initially represented as 2D images on the retina, but our brains are able to transform this input to perceive our rich 3D environment. While many studies have explored 2D spatial representations or depth perception in isolation, it remains unknown if or how these processes interact in human visual cortex. Here we used functional MRI and multi-voxel pattern analysis to investigate the relationship between 2D location and position-in-depth information. We stimulated different 3D locations in a blocked design: each location was defined by horizontal, vertical, and depth position. Participants remained fixated at the center of the screen while passively viewing the peripheral stimuli with red/green anaglyph glasses. Our results revealed a widespread, systematic transition throughout visual cortex. As expected, 2D location information (horizontal and vertical) could be strongly decoded in early visual areas, with reduced decoding higher along the visual hierarchy, consistent with known changes in receptive field sizes. Critically, we found that the decoding of position-in-depth information tracked inversely with the 2D location pattern, with the magnitude of depth decoding gradually increasing from intermediate to higher visual and category regions. Representations of 2D location information became increasingly location-tolerant in later areas, where depth information was also tolerant to changes in 2D location. We propose that spatial representations gradually transition from 2D-dominant to balanced 3D (2D and depth) along the visual hierarchy. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Iowa Flood Information System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.; Goska, R.; Mantilla, R.; Weber, L. J.; Young, N.

2011-12-01

The Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS) is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts both short-term and seasonal, flood-related data, information and interactive visualizations for communities in Iowa. The key element of the system's architecture is the notion of community. Locations of the communities, those near streams and rivers, define basin boundaries. The IFIS provides community-centric watershed and river characteristics, weather (rainfall) conditions, and streamflow data and visualization tools. Interactive interfaces allow access to inundation maps for different stage and return period values, and flooding scenarios with contributions from multiple rivers. Real-time and historical data of water levels, gauge heights, and rainfall conditions are available in the IFIS by streaming data from automated IFC bridge sensors, USGS stream gauges, NEXRAD radars, and NWS forecasts. Simple 2D and 3D interactive visualizations in the IFIS make the data more understandable to general public. Users are able to filter data sources for their communities and selected rivers. The data and information on IFIS is also accessible through web services and mobile applications. The IFIS is optimized for various browsers and screen sizes to provide access through multiple platforms including tablets and mobile devices. The IFIS includes a rainfall-runoff forecast model to provide a five-day flood risk estimate for around 500 communities in Iowa. Multiple view modes in the IFIS accommodate different user types from general public to researchers and decision makers by providing different level of tools and details. River view mode allows users to visualize data from multiple IFC bridge sensors and USGS stream gauges to follow flooding condition along a river. The IFIS will help communities make better-informed decisions on the occurrence of floods, and will alert communities in advance to help minimize damage of floods. This presentation provides an overview of the tools and interfaces in the IFIS developed to date to provide a platform for one-stop access to flood related data, visualizations, flood conditions, and forecast.

Flood Risk Management in Iowa through an Integrated Flood Information System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, Ibrahim; Krajewski, Witold

2013-04-01

The Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS) is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts both short-term and seasonal, flood-related data, information and interactive visualizations for communities in Iowa. The key element of the system's architecture is the notion of community. Locations of the communities, those near streams and rivers, define basin boundaries. The IFIS provides community-centric watershed and river characteristics, weather (rainfall) conditions, and streamflow data and visualization tools. Interactive interfaces allow access to inundation maps for different stage and return period values, and flooding scenarios with contributions from multiple rivers. Real-time and historical data of water levels, gauge heights, and rainfall conditions are available in the IFIS by streaming data from automated IFC bridge sensors, USGS stream gauges, NEXRAD radars, and NWS forecasts. Simple 2D and 3D interactive visualizations in the IFIS make the data more understandable to general public. Users are able to filter data sources for their communities and selected rivers. The data and information on IFIS is also accessible through web services and mobile applications. The IFIS is optimized for various browsers and screen sizes to provide access through multiple platforms including tablets and mobile devices. The IFIS includes a rainfall-runoff forecast model to provide a five-day flood risk estimate for around 1100 communities in Iowa. Multiple view modes in the IFIS accommodate different user types from general public to researchers and decision makers by providing different level of tools and details. River view mode allows users to visualize data from multiple IFC bridge sensors and USGS stream gauges to follow flooding condition along a river. The IFIS will help communities make better-informed decisions on the occurrence of floods, and will alert communities in advance to help minimize damage of floods. This presentation provides an overview and live demonstration of the tools and interfaces in the IFIS developed to date to provide a platform for one-stop access to flood related data, visualizations, flood conditions, and forecast.

Crossroads: Modern Interactive Intersections and Accessible Pedestrian Signals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barlow, Janet M.; Franck, Lukas

2005-01-01

This article discusses the interactive nature of modern actuated intersections and the effect of that interface on pedestrians who are visually impaired. Information is provided about accessible pedestrian signals (APS), the role of blindness professionals in APS installation decisions, and techniques for crossing streets with APS.

The Case for Open Source Software: The Interactional Discourse Lab

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Choi, Seongsook

2016-01-01

Computational techniques and software applications for the quantitative content analysis of texts are now well established, and many qualitative data software applications enable the manipulation of input variables and the visualization of complex relations between them via interactive and informative graphical interfaces. Although advances in…

Build an Interactive Word Wall

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jackson, Julie

2018-01-01

Word walls visually display important vocabulary covered during class. Although teachers have often been encouraged to post word walls in their classrooms, little information is available to guide them. This article describes steps science teachers can follow to transform traditional word walls into interactive teaching tools. It also describes a…

Designing visual displays and system models for safe reactor operations based on the user`s perspective of the system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brown-VanHoozer, S.A.

Most designers are not schooled in the area of human-interaction psychology and therefore tend to rely on the traditional ergonomic aspects of human factors when designing complex human-interactive workstations related to reactor operations. They do not take into account the differences in user information processing behavior and how these behaviors may affect individual and team performance when accessing visual displays or utilizing system models in process and control room areas. Unfortunately, by ignoring the importance of the integration of the user interface at the information process level, the result can be sub-optimization and inherently error- and failure-prone systems. Therefore, tomore » minimize or eliminate failures in human-interactive systems, it is essential that the designers understand how each user`s processing characteristics affects how the user gathers information, and how the user communicates the information to the designer and other users. A different type of approach in achieving this understanding is Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). The material presented in this paper is based on two studies involving the design of visual displays, NLP, and the user`s perspective model of a reactor system. The studies involve the methodology known as NLP, and its use in expanding design choices from the user`s ``model of the world,`` in the areas of virtual reality, workstation design, team structure, decision and learning style patterns, safety operations, pattern recognition, and much, much more.« less

Audio-Visual Perception System for a Humanoid Robotic Head

PubMed Central

Viciana-Abad, Raquel; Marfil, Rebeca; Perez-Lorenzo, Jose M.; Bandera, Juan P.; Romero-Garces, Adrian; Reche-Lopez, Pedro

2014-01-01

One of the main issues within the field of social robotics is to endow robots with the ability to direct attention to people with whom they are interacting. Different approaches follow bio-inspired mechanisms, merging audio and visual cues to localize a person using multiple sensors. However, most of these fusion mechanisms have been used in fixed systems, such as those used in video-conference rooms, and thus, they may incur difficulties when constrained to the sensors with which a robot can be equipped. Besides, within the scope of interactive autonomous robots, there is a lack in terms of evaluating the benefits of audio-visual attention mechanisms, compared to only audio or visual approaches, in real scenarios. Most of the tests conducted have been within controlled environments, at short distances and/or with off-line performance measurements. With the goal of demonstrating the benefit of fusing sensory information with a Bayes inference for interactive robotics, this paper presents a system for localizing a person by processing visual and audio data. Moreover, the performance of this system is evaluated and compared via considering the technical limitations of unimodal systems. The experiments show the promise of the proposed approach for the proactive detection and tracking of speakers in a human-robot interactive framework. PMID:24878593

Learning about Probability from Text and Tables: Do Color Coding and Labeling through an Interactive-User Interface Help?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clinton, Virginia; Morsanyi, Kinga; Alibali, Martha W.; Nathan, Mitchell J.

2016-01-01

Learning from visual representations is enhanced when learners appropriately integrate corresponding visual and verbal information. This study examined the effects of two methods of promoting integration, color coding and labeling, on learning about probabilistic reasoning from a table and text. Undergraduate students (N = 98) were randomly…

Thinking about the Weather: How Display Salience and Knowledge Affect Performance in a Graphic Inference Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hegarty, Mary; Canham, Matt S.; Fabrikant, Sara I.

2010-01-01

Three experiments examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex visual displays (weather maps). Bottom-up effects of display design were investigated by manipulating the relative visual salience of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information across different maps. Top-down effects of…

Vision for navigation: What can we learn from ants?

PubMed

Graham, Paul; Philippides, Andrew

2017-09-01

The visual systems of all animals are used to provide information that can guide behaviour. In some cases insects demonstrate particularly impressive visually-guided behaviour and then we might reasonably ask how the low-resolution vision and limited neural resources of insects are tuned to particular behavioural strategies. Such questions are of interest to both biologists and to engineers seeking to emulate insect-level performance with lightweight hardware. One behaviour that insects share with many animals is the use of learnt visual information for navigation. Desert ants, in particular, are expert visual navigators. Across their foraging life, ants can learn long idiosyncratic foraging routes. What's more, these routes are learnt quickly and the visual cues that define them can be implemented for guidance independently of other social or personal information. Here we review the style of visual navigation in solitary foraging ants and consider the physiological mechanisms that underpin it. Our perspective is to consider that robust navigation comes from the optimal interaction between behavioural strategy, visual mechanisms and neural hardware. We consider each of these in turn, highlighting the value of ant-like mechanisms in biomimetic endeavours. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Resources for Designing, Selecting and Teaching with Visualizations in the Geoscience Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kirk, K. B.; Manduca, C. A.; Ormand, C. J.; McDaris, J. R.

2009-12-01

Geoscience is a highly visual field, and effective use of visualizations can enhance student learning, appeal to students’ emotions and help them acquire skills for interpreting visual information. The On the Cutting Edge website, “Teaching Geoscience with Visualizations” presents information of interest to faculty who are teaching with visualizations, as well as those who are designing visualizations. The website contains best practices for effective visualizations, drawn from the educational literature and from experts in the field. For example, a case is made for careful selection of visualizations so that faculty can align the correct visualization with their teaching goals and audience level. Appropriate visualizations will contain the desired geoscience content without adding extraneous information that may distract or confuse students. Features such as labels, arrows and contextual information can help guide students through imagery and help to explain the relevant concepts. Because students learn by constructing their own mental image of processes, it is helpful to select visualizations that reflect the same type of mental picture that students should create. A host of recommended readings and presentations from the On the Cutting Edge visualization workshops can provide further grounding for the educational uses of visualizations. Several different collections of visualizations, datasets with visualizations and visualization tools are available on the website. Examples include animations of tsunamis, El Nino conditions, braided stream formation and mountain uplift. These collections are grouped by topic and range from simple animations to interactive models. A series of example activities that incorporate visualizations into classroom and laboratory activities illustrate various tactics for using these materials in different types of settings. Activities cover topics such as ocean circulation, land use changes, earthquake simulations and the use of Google Earth to explore geologic processes. These materials can be found at http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/visualization. Faculty and developers of visualization tools are encouraged to submit teaching activities, references or visualizations to the collections.

Behavioural evidence for separate mechanisms of audiovisual temporal binding as a function of leading sensory modality.

PubMed

Cecere, Roberto; Gross, Joachim; Thut, Gregor

2016-06-01

The ability to integrate auditory and visual information is critical for effective perception and interaction with the environment, and is thought to be abnormal in some clinical populations. Several studies have investigated the time window over which audiovisual events are integrated, also called the temporal binding window, and revealed asymmetries depending on the order of audiovisual input (i.e. the leading sense). When judging audiovisual simultaneity, the binding window appears narrower and non-malleable for auditory-leading stimulus pairs and wider and trainable for visual-leading pairs. Here we specifically examined the level of independence of binding mechanisms when auditory-before-visual vs. visual-before-auditory input is bound. Three groups of healthy participants practiced audiovisual simultaneity detection with feedback, selectively training on auditory-leading stimulus pairs (group 1), visual-leading stimulus pairs (group 2) or both (group 3). Subsequently, we tested for learning transfer (crossover) from trained stimulus pairs to non-trained pairs with opposite audiovisual input. Our data confirmed the known asymmetry in size and trainability for auditory-visual vs. visual-auditory binding windows. More importantly, practicing one type of audiovisual integration (e.g. auditory-visual) did not affect the other type (e.g. visual-auditory), even if trainable by within-condition practice. Together, these results provide crucial evidence that audiovisual temporal binding for auditory-leading vs. visual-leading stimulus pairs are independent, possibly tapping into different circuits for audiovisual integration due to engagement of different multisensory sampling mechanisms depending on leading sense. Our results have implications for informing the study of multisensory interactions in healthy participants and clinical populations with dysfunctional multisensory integration. © 2016 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

TrajGraph: A Graph-Based Visual Analytics Approach to Studying Urban Network Centralities Using Taxi Trajectory Data.

PubMed

Huang, Xiaoke; Zhao, Ye; Yang, Jing; Zhang, Chong; Ma, Chao; Ye, Xinyue

2016-01-01

We propose TrajGraph, a new visual analytics method, for studying urban mobility patterns by integrating graph modeling and visual analysis with taxi trajectory data. A special graph is created to store and manifest real traffic information recorded by taxi trajectories over city streets. It conveys urban transportation dynamics which can be discovered by applying graph analysis algorithms. To support interactive, multiscale visual analytics, a graph partitioning algorithm is applied to create region-level graphs which have smaller size than the original street-level graph. Graph centralities, including Pagerank and betweenness, are computed to characterize the time-varying importance of different urban regions. The centralities are visualized by three coordinated views including a node-link graph view, a map view and a temporal information view. Users can interactively examine the importance of streets to discover and assess city traffic patterns. We have implemented a fully working prototype of this approach and evaluated it using massive taxi trajectories of Shenzhen, China. TrajGraph's capability in revealing the importance of city streets was evaluated by comparing the calculated centralities with the subjective evaluations from a group of drivers in Shenzhen. Feedback from a domain expert was collected. The effectiveness of the visual interface was evaluated through a formal user study. We also present several examples and a case study to demonstrate the usefulness of TrajGraph in urban transportation analysis.

Interactive and coordinated visualization approaches for biological data analysis.

PubMed

Cruz, António; Arrais, Joel P; Machado, Penousal

2018-03-26

The field of computational biology has become largely dependent on data visualization tools to analyze the increasing quantities of data gathered through the use of new and growing technologies. Aside from the volume, which often results in large amounts of noise and complex relationships with no clear structure, the visualization of biological data sets is hindered by their heterogeneity, as data are obtained from different sources and contain a wide variety of attributes, including spatial and temporal information. This requires visualization approaches that are able to not only represent various data structures simultaneously but also provide exploratory methods that allow the identification of meaningful relationships that would not be perceptible through data analysis algorithms alone. In this article, we present a survey of visualization approaches applied to the analysis of biological data. We focus on graph-based visualizations and tools that use coordinated multiple views to represent high-dimensional multivariate data, in particular time series gene expression, protein-protein interaction networks and biological pathways. We then discuss how these methods can be used to help solve the current challenges surrounding the visualization of complex biological data sets.

Accurate expectancies diminish perceptual distraction during visual search

PubMed Central

Sy, Jocelyn L.; Guerin, Scott A.; Stegman, Anna; Giesbrecht, Barry

2014-01-01

The load theory of visual attention proposes that efficient selective perceptual processing of task-relevant information during search is determined automatically by the perceptual demands of the display. If the perceptual demands required to process task-relevant information are not enough to consume all available capacity, then the remaining capacity automatically and exhaustively “spills-over” to task-irrelevant information. The spill-over of perceptual processing capacity increases the likelihood that task-irrelevant information will impair performance. In two visual search experiments, we tested the automaticity of the allocation of perceptual processing resources by measuring the extent to which the processing of task-irrelevant distracting stimuli was modulated by both perceptual load and top-down expectations using behavior, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and electrophysiology. Expectations were generated using a trial-by-trial cue that provided information about the likely load of the upcoming visual search task. When the cues were valid, behavioral interference was eliminated and the influence of load on frontoparietal and visual cortical responses was attenuated relative to when the cues were invalid. In conditions in which task-irrelevant information interfered with performance and modulated visual activity, individual differences in mean blood oxygenation level dependent responses measured from the left intraparietal sulcus were negatively correlated with individual differences in the severity of distraction. These results are consistent with the interpretation that a top-down biasing mechanism interacts with perceptual load to support filtering of task-irrelevant information. PMID:24904374

Social Media Visual Analytics for Events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Diakopoulos, Nicholas; Naaman, Mor; Yazdani, Tayebeh; Kivran-Swaine, Funda

For large-scale multimedia events such as televised debates and speeches, the amount of content on social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter can easily become overwhelming, yet still contain information that may aid and augment understanding of the multimedia content via individual social media items, or aggregate information from the crowd's response. In this work we discuss this opportunity in the context of a social media visual analytic tool, Vox Civitas, designed to help journalists, media professionals, or other researchers make sense of large-scale aggregations of social media content around multimedia broadcast events. We discuss the design of the tool, present and evaluate the text analysis techniques used to enable the presentation, and detail the visual and interaction design. We provide an exploratory evaluation based on a user study in which journalists interacted with the system to analyze and report on a dataset of over one 100 000 Twitter messages collected during the broadcast of the U.S. State of the Union presidential address in 2010.

Visual Elements and Container Metaphors for Multi-Media.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howarth, Mike

1997-01-01

An interactive version of an educational radio program can be developed quickly and easily with a main menu interface that takes into account physical classroom conditions; interactive learning interfaces that accommodate eye and vision requirements of children; and a story interface design informed by the "container" metaphor and the 2-D…

Aesthetics, Usefulness and Performance in User--Search-Engine Interaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Katz, Adi

2010-01-01

Issues of visual appeal have become an integral part of designing interactive systems. Interface aesthetics may form users' attitudes towards computer applications and information technology. Aesthetics can affect user satisfaction, and influence their willingness to buy or adopt a system. This study follows previous studies that found that users…

Enhancing Speech Intelligibility: Interactions among Context, Modality, Speech Style, and Masker

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Engen, Kristin J.; Phelps, Jasmine E. B.; Smiljanic, Rajka; Chandrasekaran, Bharath

2014-01-01

Purpose: The authors sought to investigate interactions among intelligibility-enhancing speech cues (i.e., semantic context, clearly produced speech, and visual information) across a range of masking conditions. Method: Sentence recognition in noise was assessed for 29 normal-hearing listeners. Testing included semantically normal and anomalous…

Vision in two cyprinid fish: implications for collective behavior

PubMed Central

Moore, Bret A.; Tyrrell, Luke P.; Fernández-Juricic, Esteban

2015-01-01

Many species of fish rely on their visual systems to interact with conspecifics and these interactions can lead to collective behavior. Individual-based models have been used to predict collective interactions; however, these models generally make simplistic assumptions about the sensory systems that are applied without proper empirical testing to different species. This could limit our ability to predict (and test empirically) collective behavior in species with very different sensory requirements. In this study, we characterized components of the visual system in two species of cyprinid fish known to engage in visually dependent collective interactions (zebrafish Danio rerio and golden shiner Notemigonus crysoleucas) and derived quantitative predictions about the positioning of individuals within schools. We found that both species had relatively narrow binocular and blind fields and wide visual coverage. However, golden shiners had more visual coverage in the vertical plane (binocular field extending behind the head) and higher visual acuity than zebrafish. The centers of acute vision (areae) of both species projected in the fronto-dorsal region of the visual field, but those of the zebrafish projected more dorsally than those of the golden shiner. Based on this visual sensory information, we predicted that: (a) predator detection time could be increased by >1,000% in zebrafish and >100% in golden shiners with an increase in nearest neighbor distance, (b) zebrafish schools would have a higher roughness value (surface area/volume ratio) than those of golden shiners, (c) and that nearest neighbor distance would vary from 8 to 20 cm to visually resolve conspecific striping patterns in both species. Overall, considering between-species differences in the sensory system of species exhibiting collective behavior could change the predictions about the positioning of individuals in the group as well as the shape of the school, which can have implications for group cohesion. We suggest that more effort should be invested in assessing the role of the sensory system in shaping local interactions driving collective behavior. PMID:26290783

An interactive web application for the dissemination of human systems immunology data.

PubMed

Speake, Cate; Presnell, Scott; Domico, Kelly; Zeitner, Brad; Bjork, Anna; Anderson, David; Mason, Michael J; Whalen, Elizabeth; Vargas, Olivia; Popov, Dimitry; Rinchai, Darawan; Jourde-Chiche, Noemie; Chiche, Laurent; Quinn, Charlie; Chaussabel, Damien

2015-06-19

Systems immunology approaches have proven invaluable in translational research settings. The current rate at which large-scale datasets are generated presents unique challenges and opportunities. Mining aggregates of these datasets could accelerate the pace of discovery, but new solutions are needed to integrate the heterogeneous data types with the contextual information that is necessary for interpretation. In addition, enabling tools and technologies facilitating investigators' interaction with large-scale datasets must be developed in order to promote insight and foster knowledge discovery. State of the art application programming was employed to develop an interactive web application for browsing and visualizing large and complex datasets. A collection of human immune transcriptome datasets were loaded alongside contextual information about the samples. We provide a resource enabling interactive query and navigation of transcriptome datasets relevant to human immunology research. Detailed information about studies and samples are displayed dynamically; if desired the associated data can be downloaded. Custom interactive visualizations of the data can be shared via email or social media. This application can be used to browse context-rich systems-scale data within and across systems immunology studies. This resource is publicly available online at [Gene Expression Browser Landing Page ( https://gxb.benaroyaresearch.org/dm3/landing.gsp )]. The source code is also available openly [Gene Expression Browser Source Code ( https://github.com/BenaroyaResearch/gxbrowser )]. We have developed a data browsing and visualization application capable of navigating increasingly large and complex datasets generated in the context of immunological studies. This intuitive tool ensures that, whether taken individually or as a whole, such datasets generated at great effort and expense remain interpretable and a ready source of insight for years to come.

Evaluation of a visual layering methodology for colour coding control room displays.

PubMed

Van Laar, Darren; Deshe, Ofer

2002-07-01

Eighteen people participated in an experiment in which they were asked to search for targets on control room like displays which had been produced using three different coding methods. The monochrome coding method displayed the information in black and white only, the maximally discriminable method contained colours chosen for their high perceptual discriminability, the visual layers method contained colours developed from psychological and cartographic principles which grouped information into a perceptual hierarchy. The visual layers method produced significantly faster search times than the other two coding methods which did not differ significantly from each other. Search time also differed significantly for presentation order and for the method x order interaction. There was no significant difference between the methods in the number of errors made. Participants clearly preferred the visual layers coding method. Proposals are made for the design of experiments to further test and develop the visual layers colour coding methodology.

Bayesian networks and information theory for audio-visual perception modeling.

PubMed

Besson, Patricia; Richiardi, Jonas; Bourdin, Christophe; Bringoux, Lionel; Mestre, Daniel R; Vercher, Jean-Louis

2010-09-01

Thanks to their different senses, human observers acquire multiple information coming from their environment. Complex cross-modal interactions occur during this perceptual process. This article proposes a framework to analyze and model these interactions through a rigorous and systematic data-driven process. This requires considering the general relationships between the physical events or factors involved in the process, not only in quantitative terms, but also in term of the influence of one factor on another. We use tools from information theory and probabilistic reasoning to derive relationships between the random variables of interest, where the central notion is that of conditional independence. Using mutual information analysis to guide the model elicitation process, a probabilistic causal model encoded as a Bayesian network is obtained. We exemplify the method by using data collected in an audio-visual localization task for human subjects, and we show that it yields a well-motivated model with good predictive ability. The model elicitation process offers new prospects for the investigation of the cognitive mechanisms of multisensory perception.

The relationship between visual working memory and attention: retention of precise colour information in the absence of effects on perceptual selection.

PubMed

Hollingworth, Andrew; Hwang, Seongmin

2013-10-19

We examined the conditions under which a feature value in visual working memory (VWM) recruits visual attention to matching stimuli. Previous work has suggested that VWM supports two qualitatively different states of representation: an active state that interacts with perceptual selection and a passive (or accessory) state that does not. An alternative hypothesis is that VWM supports a single form of representation, with the precision of feature memory controlling whether or not the representation interacts with perceptual selection. The results of three experiments supported the dual-state hypothesis. We established conditions under which participants retained a relatively precise representation of a parcticular colour. If the colour was immediately task relevant, it reliably recruited attention to matching stimuli. However, if the colour was not immediately task relevant, it failed to interact with perceptual selection. Feature maintenance in VWM is not necessarily equivalent with feature-based attentional selection.

C-State: an interactive web app for simultaneous multi-gene visualization and comparative epigenetic pattern search.

PubMed

Sowpati, Divya Tej; Srivastava, Surabhi; Dhawan, Jyotsna; Mishra, Rakesh K

2017-09-13

Comparative epigenomic analysis across multiple genes presents a bottleneck for bench biologists working with NGS data. Despite the development of standardized peak analysis algorithms, the identification of novel epigenetic patterns and their visualization across gene subsets remains a challenge. We developed a fast and interactive web app, C-State (Chromatin-State), to query and plot chromatin landscapes across multiple loci and cell types. C-State has an interactive, JavaScript-based graphical user interface and runs locally in modern web browsers that are pre-installed on all computers, thus eliminating the need for cumbersome data transfer, pre-processing and prior programming knowledge. C-State is unique in its ability to extract and analyze multi-gene epigenetic information. It allows for powerful GUI-based pattern searching and visualization. We include a case study to demonstrate its potential for identifying user-defined epigenetic trends in context of gene expression profiles.

Real-time lexical comprehension in young children learning American Sign Language.

PubMed

MacDonald, Kyle; LaMarr, Todd; Corina, David; Marchman, Virginia A; Fernald, Anne

2018-04-16

When children interpret spoken language in real time, linguistic information drives rapid shifts in visual attention to objects in the visual world. This language-vision interaction can provide insights into children's developing efficiency in language comprehension. But how does language influence visual attention when the linguistic signal and the visual world are both processed via the visual channel? Here, we measured eye movements during real-time comprehension of a visual-manual language, American Sign Language (ASL), by 29 native ASL-learning children (16-53 mos, 16 deaf, 13 hearing) and 16 fluent deaf adult signers. All signers showed evidence of rapid, incremental language comprehension, tending to initiate an eye movement before sign offset. Deaf and hearing ASL-learners showed similar gaze patterns, suggesting that the in-the-moment dynamics of eye movements during ASL processing are shaped by the constraints of processing a visual language in real time and not by differential access to auditory information in day-to-day life. Finally, variation in children's ASL processing was positively correlated with age and vocabulary size. Thus, despite competition for attention within a single modality, the timing and accuracy of visual fixations during ASL comprehension reflect information processing skills that are important for language acquisition regardless of language modality. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Optimizing the interaction of children with information and communication technologies.

PubMed

Straker, L; Pollock, C

2005-04-15

This paper outlines the major changes in the lives of children in industrially advanced countries associated with the increased interaction with information and communication technologies. The potential opportunities and threats to the cognitive, social, physical and visual development of children are reviewed to emphasize the importance of optimizing the interaction. The change in children's use of technology also poses opportunities and threats for ergonomics that should be noted if the profession is to continue being relevant and useful into this century. The paper ends with a pathway to the development and implementation of guidelines about child information and communication technology use for different groups of guideline users.

Task–Technology Fit of Video Telehealth for Nurses in an Outpatient Clinic Setting

PubMed Central

Finkelstein, Stanley M.

2014-01-01

Abstract Background: Incorporating telehealth into outpatient care delivery supports management of consumer health between clinic visits. Task–technology fit is a framework for understanding how technology helps and/or hinders a person during work processes. Evaluating the task–technology fit of video telehealth for personnel working in a pediatric outpatient clinic and providing care between clinic visits ensures the information provided matches the information needed to support work processes. Materials and Methods: The workflow of advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) care coordination provided via telephone and video telehealth was described and measured using a mixed-methods workflow analysis protocol that incorporated cognitive ethnography and time–motion study. Qualitative and quantitative results were merged and analyzed within the task–technology fit framework to determine the workflow fit of video telehealth for APRN care coordination. Results: Incorporating video telehealth into APRN care coordination workflow provided visual information unavailable during telephone interactions. Despite additional tasks and interactions needed to obtain the visual information, APRN workflow efficiency, as measured by time, was not significantly changed. Analyzed within the task–technology fit framework, the increased visual information afforded by video telehealth supported the assessment and diagnostic information needs of the APRN. Conclusions: Telehealth must provide the right information to the right clinician at the right time. Evaluating task–technology fit using a mixed-methods protocol ensured rigorous analysis of fit within work processes and identified workflows that benefit most from the technology. PMID:24841219

Physics-based interactive volume manipulation for sharing surgical process.

PubMed

Nakao, Megumi; Minato, Kotaro

2010-05-01

This paper presents a new set of techniques by which surgeons can interactively manipulate patient-specific volumetric models for sharing surgical process. To handle physical interaction between the surgical tools and organs, we propose a simple surface-constraint-based manipulation algorithm to consistently simulate common surgical manipulations such as grasping, holding and retraction. Our computation model is capable of simulating soft-tissue deformation and incision in real time. We also present visualization techniques in order to rapidly visualize time-varying, volumetric information on the deformed image. This paper demonstrates the success of the proposed methods in enabling the simulation of surgical processes, and the ways in which this simulation facilitates preoperative planning and rehearsal.

Finding Waldo: Learning about Users from their Interactions.

PubMed

Brown, Eli T; Ottley, Alvitta; Zhao, Helen; Quan Lin; Souvenir, Richard; Endert, Alex; Chang, Remco

2014-12-01

Visual analytics is inherently a collaboration between human and computer. However, in current visual analytics systems, the computer has limited means of knowing about its users and their analysis processes. While existing research has shown that a user's interactions with a system reflect a large amount of the user's reasoning process, there has been limited advancement in developing automated, real-time techniques that mine interactions to learn about the user. In this paper, we demonstrate that we can accurately predict a user's task performance and infer some user personality traits by using machine learning techniques to analyze interaction data. Specifically, we conduct an experiment in which participants perform a visual search task, and apply well-known machine learning algorithms to three encodings of the users' interaction data. We achieve, depending on algorithm and encoding, between 62% and 83% accuracy at predicting whether each user will be fast or slow at completing the task. Beyond predicting performance, we demonstrate that using the same techniques, we can infer aspects of the user's personality factors, including locus of control, extraversion, and neuroticism. Further analyses show that strong results can be attained with limited observation time: in one case 95% of the final accuracy is gained after a quarter of the average task completion time. Overall, our findings show that interactions can provide information to the computer about its human collaborator, and establish a foundation for realizing mixed-initiative visual analytics systems.

Depth reversals in stereoscopic displays driven by apparent size

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sacher, Gunnar; Hayes, Amy; Thornton, Ian M.; Sereno, Margaret E.; Malony, Allen D.

1998-04-01

In visual scenes, depth information is derived from a variety of monocular and binocular cues. When in conflict, a monocular cue is sometimes able to override the binocular information. We examined the accuracy of relative depth judgments in orthographic, stereoscopic displays and found that perceived relative size can override binocular disparity as a depth cue in a situation where the relative size information is itself generated from disparity information, not from retinal size difference. A size discrimination task confirmed the assumption that disparity information was perceived and used to generate apparent size differences. The tendency for the apparent size cue to override disparity information can be modulated by varying the strength of the apparent size cue. In addition, an analysis of reaction times provides supporting evidence for this novel depth reversal effect. We believe that human perception must be regarded as an important component of stereoscopic applications. Hence, if applications are to be effective and accurate, it is necessary to take into account the richness and complexity of the human visual perceptual system that interacts with them. We discuss implications of this and similar research for human performance in virtual environments, the design of visual presentations for virtual worlds, and the design of visualization tools.

Transformation of an uncertain video search pipeline to a sketch-based visual analytics loop.

PubMed

Legg, Philip A; Chung, David H S; Parry, Matthew L; Bown, Rhodri; Jones, Mark W; Griffiths, Iwan W; Chen, Min

2013-12-01

Traditional sketch-based image or video search systems rely on machine learning concepts as their core technology. However, in many applications, machine learning alone is impractical since videos may not be semantically annotated sufficiently, there may be a lack of suitable training data, and the search requirements of the user may frequently change for different tasks. In this work, we develop a visual analytics systems that overcomes the shortcomings of the traditional approach. We make use of a sketch-based interface to enable users to specify search requirement in a flexible manner without depending on semantic annotation. We employ active machine learning to train different analytical models for different types of search requirements. We use visualization to facilitate knowledge discovery at the different stages of visual analytics. This includes visualizing the parameter space of the trained model, visualizing the search space to support interactive browsing, visualizing candidature search results to support rapid interaction for active learning while minimizing watching videos, and visualizing aggregated information of the search results. We demonstrate the system for searching spatiotemporal attributes from sports video to identify key instances of the team and player performance.

VISTILES: Coordinating and Combining Co-located Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration.

PubMed

Langner, Ricardo; Horak, Tom; Dachselt, Raimund

2017-08-29

We present VISTILES, a conceptual framework that uses a set of mobile devices to distribute and coordinate visualization views for the exploration of multivariate data. In contrast to desktop-based interfaces for information visualization, mobile devices offer the potential to provide a dynamic and user-defined interface supporting co-located collaborative data exploration with different individual workflows. As part of our framework, we contribute concepts that enable users to interact with coordinated & multiple views (CMV) that are distributed across several mobile devices. The major components of the framework are: (i) dynamic and flexible layouts for CMV focusing on the distribution of views and (ii) an interaction concept for smart adaptations and combinations of visualizations utilizing explicit side-by-side arrangements of devices. As a result, users can benefit from the possibility to combine devices and organize them in meaningful spatial layouts. Furthermore, we present a web-based prototype implementation as a specific instance of our concepts. This implementation provides a practical application case enabling users to explore a multivariate data collection. We also illustrate the design process including feedback from a preliminary user study, which informed the design of both the concepts and the final prototype.

Integration of Visual and Proprioceptive Limb Position Information in Human Posterior Parietal, Premotor, and Extrastriate Cortex.

PubMed

Limanowski, Jakub; Blankenburg, Felix

2016-03-02

The brain constructs a flexible representation of the body from multisensory information. Previous work on monkeys suggests that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and ventral premotor cortex (PMv) represent the position of the upper limbs based on visual and proprioceptive information. Human experiments on the rubber hand illusion implicate similar regions, but since such experiments rely on additional visuo-tactile interactions, they cannot isolate visuo-proprioceptive integration. Here, we independently manipulated the position (palm or back facing) of passive human participants' unseen arm and of a photorealistic virtual 3D arm. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed that matching visual and proprioceptive information about arm position engaged the PPC, PMv, and the body-selective extrastriate body area (EBA); activity in the PMv moreover reflected interindividual differences in congruent arm ownership. Further, the PPC, PMv, and EBA increased their coupling with the primary visual cortex during congruent visuo-proprioceptive position information. These results suggest that human PPC, PMv, and EBA evaluate visual and proprioceptive position information and, under sufficient cross-modal congruence, integrate it into a multisensory representation of the upper limb in space. The position of our limbs in space constantly changes, yet the brain manages to represent limb position accurately by combining information from vision and proprioception. Electrophysiological recordings in monkeys have revealed neurons in the posterior parietal and premotor cortices that seem to implement and update such a multisensory limb representation, but this has been difficult to demonstrate in humans. Our fMRI experiment shows that human posterior parietal, premotor, and body-selective visual brain areas respond preferentially to a virtual arm seen in a position corresponding to one's unseen hidden arm, while increasing their communication with regions conveying visual information. These brain areas thus likely integrate visual and proprioceptive information into a flexible multisensory body representation. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/362582-08$15.00/0.

Image gathering and restoration - Information and visual quality

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mccormick, Judith A.; Alter-Gartenberg, Rachel; Huck, Friedrich O.

1989-01-01

A method is investigated for optimizing the end-to-end performance of image gathering and restoration for visual quality. To achieve this objective, one must inevitably confront the problems that the visual quality of restored images depends on perceptual rather than mathematical considerations and that these considerations vary with the target, the application, and the observer. The method adopted in this paper is to optimize image gathering informationally and to restore images interactively to obtain the visually preferred trade-off among fidelity resolution, sharpness, and clarity. The results demonstrate that this method leads to significant improvements in the visual quality obtained by the traditional digital processing methods. These traditional methods allow a significant loss of visual quality to occur because they treat the design of the image-gathering system and the formulation of the image-restoration algorithm as two separate tasks and fail to account for the transformations between the continuous and the discrete representations in image gathering and reconstruction.

FUn: a framework for interactive visualizations of large, high-dimensional datasets on the web.

PubMed

Probst, Daniel; Reymond, Jean-Louis

2018-04-15

During the past decade, big data have become a major tool in scientific endeavors. Although statistical methods and algorithms are well-suited for analyzing and summarizing enormous amounts of data, the results do not allow for a visual inspection of the entire data. Current scientific software, including R packages and Python libraries such as ggplot2, matplotlib and plot.ly, do not support interactive visualizations of datasets exceeding 100 000 data points on the web. Other solutions enable the web-based visualization of big data only through data reduction or statistical representations. However, recent hardware developments, especially advancements in graphical processing units, allow for the rendering of millions of data points on a wide range of consumer hardware such as laptops, tablets and mobile phones. Similar to the challenges and opportunities brought to virtually every scientific field by big data, both the visualization of and interaction with copious amounts of data are both demanding and hold great promise. Here we present FUn, a framework consisting of a client (Faerun) and server (Underdark) module, facilitating the creation of web-based, interactive 3D visualizations of large datasets, enabling record level visual inspection. We also introduce a reference implementation providing access to SureChEMBL, a database containing patent information on more than 17 million chemical compounds. The source code and the most recent builds of Faerun and Underdark, Lore.js and the data preprocessing toolchain used in the reference implementation, are available on the project website (http://doc.gdb.tools/fun/). daniel.probst@dcb.unibe.ch or jean-louis.reymond@dcb.unibe.ch.

A Selected Bibliography of On-Line Visual Displays and Their Applications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braidwood, J.

Contained in this bibliography are 312 references as they related to general principles and problems of information display, man-computer interaction, present and possible future display equipment, ergonomic aspects of display design, and current and potential applications, especially to information processing. (Author/MM)

Interactive visualization for scar transmurality in cardiac resynchronization therapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reiml, Sabrina; Toth, Daniel; Panayiotou, Maria; Fahn, Bernhard; Karim, Rashed; Behar, Jonathan M.; Rinaldi, Christopher A.; Razavi, Reza; Rhode, Kawal S.; Brost, Alexander; Mountney, Peter

2016-03-01

Heart failure is a serious disease affecting about 23 million people worldwide. Cardiac resynchronization therapy is used to treat patients suffering from symptomatic heart failure. However, 30% to 50% of patients have limited clinical benefit. One of the main causes is suboptimal placement of the left ventricular lead. Pacing in areas of myocardial scar correlates with poor clinical outcomes. Therefore precise knowledge of the individual patient's scar characteristics is critical for delivering tailored treatments capable of improving response rates. Current research methods for scar assessment either map information to an alternative non-anatomical coordinate system or they use the image coordinate system but lose critical information about scar extent and scar distribution. This paper proposes two interactive methods for visualizing relevant scar information. A 2-D slice based approach with a scar mask overlaid on a 16 segment heart model and a 3-D layered mesh visualization which allows physicians to scroll through layers of scar from endocardium to epicardium. These complementary methods enable physicians to evaluate scar location and transmurality during planning and guidance. Six physicians evaluated the proposed system by identifying target regions for lead placement. With the proposed method more target regions could be identified.

Visual Analytics of Surveillance Data on Foodborne Vibriosis, United States, 1973–2010

PubMed Central

Sims, Jennifer N.; Isokpehi, Raphael D.; Cooper, Gabrielle A.; Bass, Michael P.; Brown, Shyretha D.; St John, Alison L.; Gulig, Paul A.; Cohly, Hari H.P.

2011-01-01

Foodborne illnesses caused by microbial and chemical contaminants in food are a substantial health burden worldwide. In 2007, human vibriosis (non-cholera Vibrio infections) became a notifiable disease in the United States. In addition, Vibrio species are among the 31 major known pathogens transmitted through food in the United States. Diverse surveillance systems for foodborne pathogens also track outbreaks, illnesses, hospitalization and deaths due to non-cholera vibrios. Considering the recognition of vibriosis as a notifiable disease in the United States and the availability of diverse surveillance systems, there is a need for the development of easily deployed visualization and analysis approaches that can combine diverse data sources in an interactive manner. Current efforts to address this need are still limited. Visual analytics is an iterative process conducted via visual interfaces that involves collecting information, data preprocessing, knowledge representation, interaction, and decision making. We have utilized public domain outbreak and surveillance data sources covering 1973 to 2010, as well as visual analytics software to demonstrate integrated and interactive visualizations of data on foodborne outbreaks and surveillance of Vibrio species. Through the data visualization, we were able to identify unique patterns and/or novel relationships within and across datasets regarding (i) causative agent; (ii) foodborne outbreaks and illness per state; (iii) location of infection; (iv) vehicle (food) of infection; (v) anatomical site of isolation of Vibrio species; (vi) patients and complications of vibriosis; (vii) incidence of laboratory-confirmed vibriosis and V. parahaemolyticus outbreaks. The additional use of emerging visual analytics approaches for interaction with data on vibriosis, including non-foodborne related disease, can guide disease control and prevention as well as ongoing outbreak investigations. PMID:22174586

Knowledge Interaction Design for Creative Knowledge Work

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nakakoji, Kumiyo; Yamamoto, Yasuhiro

This paper describes our approach for the development of application systems for creative knowledge work, particularly for early stages of information design tasks. Being a cognitive tool serving as a means of externalization, an application system affects how the user is engaged in the creative process through its visual interaction design. Knowledge interaction design described in this paper is a framework where a set of application systems for different information design domains are developed based on an interaction model, which is designed for a particular model of a thinking process. We have developed two sets of application systems using the knowledge interaction design framework: one includes systems for linear information design, such as writing, movie-editing, and video-analysis; the other includes systems for network information design, such as file-system navigation and hypertext authoring. Our experience shows that the resulting systems encourage users to follow a certain cognitive path through graceful user experience.

Visualizing Mobility of Public Transportation System.

PubMed

Zeng, Wei; Fu, Chi-Wing; Arisona, Stefan Müller; Erath, Alexander; Qu, Huamin

2014-12-01

Public transportation systems (PTSs) play an important role in modern cities, providing shared/massive transportation services that are essential for the general public. However, due to their increasing complexity, designing effective methods to visualize and explore PTS is highly challenging. Most existing techniques employ network visualization methods and focus on showing the network topology across stops while ignoring various mobility-related factors such as riding time, transfer time, waiting time, and round-the-clock patterns. This work aims to visualize and explore passenger mobility in a PTS with a family of analytical tasks based on inputs from transportation researchers. After exploring different design alternatives, we come up with an integrated solution with three visualization modules: isochrone map view for geographical information, isotime flow map view for effective temporal information comparison and manipulation, and OD-pair journey view for detailed visual analysis of mobility factors along routes between specific origin-destination pairs. The isotime flow map linearizes a flow map into a parallel isoline representation, maximizing the visualization of mobility information along the horizontal time axis while presenting clear and smooth pathways from origin to destinations. Moreover, we devise several interactive visual query methods for users to easily explore the dynamics of PTS mobility over space and time. Lastly, we also construct a PTS mobility model from millions of real passenger trajectories, and evaluate our visualization techniques with assorted case studies with the transportation researchers.

Filling-in visual motion with sounds.

PubMed

Väljamäe, A; Soto-Faraco, S

2008-10-01

Information about the motion of objects can be extracted by multiple sensory modalities, and, as a consequence, object motion perception typically involves the integration of multi-sensory information. Often, in naturalistic settings, the flow of such information can be rather discontinuous (e.g. a cat racing through the furniture in a cluttered room is partly seen and partly heard). This study addressed audio-visual interactions in the perception of time-sampled object motion by measuring adaptation after-effects. We found significant auditory after-effects following adaptation to unisensory auditory and visual motion in depth, sampled at 12.5 Hz. The visually induced (cross-modal) auditory motion after-effect was eliminated if visual adaptors flashed at half of the rate (6.25 Hz). Remarkably, the addition of the high-rate acoustic flutter (12.5 Hz) to this ineffective, sparsely time-sampled, visual adaptor restored the auditory after-effect to a level comparable to what was seen with high-rate bimodal adaptors (flashes and beeps). Our results suggest that this auditory-induced reinstatement of the motion after-effect from the poor visual signals resulted from the occurrence of sound-induced illusory flashes. This effect was found to be dependent both on the directional congruency between modalities and on the rate of auditory flutter. The auditory filling-in of time-sampled visual motion supports the feasibility of using reduced frame rate visual content in multisensory broadcasting and virtual reality applications.

imDEV: a graphical user interface to R multivariate analysis tools in Microsoft Excel.

PubMed

Grapov, Dmitry; Newman, John W

2012-09-01

Interactive modules for Data Exploration and Visualization (imDEV) is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet embedded application providing an integrated environment for the analysis of omics data through a user-friendly interface. Individual modules enables interactive and dynamic analyses of large data by interfacing R's multivariate statistics and highly customizable visualizations with the spreadsheet environment, aiding robust inferences and generating information-rich data visualizations. This tool provides access to multiple comparisons with false discovery correction, hierarchical clustering, principal and independent component analyses, partial least squares regression and discriminant analysis, through an intuitive interface for creating high-quality two- and a three-dimensional visualizations including scatter plot matrices, distribution plots, dendrograms, heat maps, biplots, trellis biplots and correlation networks. Freely available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/imdev/. Implemented in R and VBA and supported by Microsoft Excel (2003, 2007 and 2010).

Do we track what we see? Common versus independent processing for motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements: a review.

PubMed

Spering, Miriam; Montagnini, Anna

2011-04-22

Many neurophysiological studies in monkeys have indicated that visual motion information for the guidance of perception and smooth pursuit eye movements is - at an early stage - processed in the same visual pathway in the brain, crucially involving the middle temporal area (MT). However, these studies left some questions unanswered: Are perception and pursuit driven by the same or independent neuronal signals within this pathway? Are the perceptual interpretation of visual motion information and the motor response to visual signals limited by the same source of neuronal noise? Here, we review psychophysical studies that were motivated by these questions and compared perception and pursuit behaviorally in healthy human observers. We further review studies that focused on the interaction between perception and pursuit. The majority of results point to similarities between perception and pursuit, but dissociations were also reported. We discuss recent developments in this research area and conclude with suggestions for common and separate principles for the guidance of perceptual and motor responses to visual motion information. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Realistic terrain visualization based on 3D virtual world technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Fengru; Lin, Hui; Chen, Bin; Xiao, Cai

2009-09-01

The rapid advances in information technologies, e.g., network, graphics processing, and virtual world, have provided challenges and opportunities for new capabilities in information systems, Internet applications, and virtual geographic environments, especially geographic visualization and collaboration. In order to achieve meaningful geographic capabilities, we need to explore and understand how these technologies can be used to construct virtual geographic environments to help to engage geographic research. The generation of three-dimensional (3D) terrain plays an important part in geographical visualization, computer simulation, and virtual geographic environment applications. The paper introduces concepts and technologies of virtual worlds and virtual geographic environments, explores integration of realistic terrain and other geographic objects and phenomena of natural geographic environment based on SL/OpenSim virtual world technologies. Realistic 3D terrain visualization is a foundation of construction of a mirror world or a sand box model of the earth landscape and geographic environment. The capabilities of interaction and collaboration on geographic information are discussed as well. Further virtual geographic applications can be developed based on the foundation work of realistic terrain visualization in virtual environments.

Realistic terrain visualization based on 3D virtual world technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Fengru; Lin, Hui; Chen, Bin; Xiao, Cai

2010-11-01

The rapid advances in information technologies, e.g., network, graphics processing, and virtual world, have provided challenges and opportunities for new capabilities in information systems, Internet applications, and virtual geographic environments, especially geographic visualization and collaboration. In order to achieve meaningful geographic capabilities, we need to explore and understand how these technologies can be used to construct virtual geographic environments to help to engage geographic research. The generation of three-dimensional (3D) terrain plays an important part in geographical visualization, computer simulation, and virtual geographic environment applications. The paper introduces concepts and technologies of virtual worlds and virtual geographic environments, explores integration of realistic terrain and other geographic objects and phenomena of natural geographic environment based on SL/OpenSim virtual world technologies. Realistic 3D terrain visualization is a foundation of construction of a mirror world or a sand box model of the earth landscape and geographic environment. The capabilities of interaction and collaboration on geographic information are discussed as well. Further virtual geographic applications can be developed based on the foundation work of realistic terrain visualization in virtual environments.

Methods and Apparatus for Autonomous Robotic Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gorshechnikov, Anatoly (Inventor); Livitz, Gennady (Inventor); Versace, Massimiliano (Inventor); Palma, Jesse (Inventor)

2017-01-01

Sensory processing of visual, auditory, and other sensor information (e.g., visual imagery, LIDAR, RADAR) is conventionally based on "stovepiped," or isolated processing, with little interactions between modules. Biological systems, on the other hand, fuse multi-sensory information to identify nearby objects of interest more quickly, more efficiently, and with higher signal-to-noise ratios. Similarly, examples of the OpenSense technology disclosed herein use neurally inspired processing to identify and locate objects in a robot's environment. This enables the robot to navigate its environment more quickly and with lower computational and power requirements.

BDNF and TNF-α polymorphisms in memory.

PubMed

Yogeetha, B S; Haupt, L M; McKenzie, K; Sutherland, H G; Okolicsyani, R K; Lea, R A; Maher, B H; Chan, R C K; Shum, D H K; Griffiths, L R

2013-09-01

Here, we investigate the genetic basis of human memory in healthy individuals and the potential role of two polymorphisms, previously implicated in memory function. We have explored aspects of retrospective and prospective memory including semantic, short term, working and long-term memory in conjunction with brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). The memory scores for healthy individuals in the population were obtained for each memory type and the population was genotyped via restriction fragment length polymorphism for the BDNF rs6265 (Val66Met) SNP and via pyrosequencing for the TNF-α rs113325588 SNP. Using univariate ANOVA, a significant association of the BDNF polymorphism with visual and spatial memory retention and a significant association of the TNF-α polymorphism was observed with spatial memory retention. In addition, a significant interactive effect between BDNF and TNF-α polymorphisms was observed in spatial memory retention. In practice visual memory involves spatial information and the two memory systems work together, however our data demonstrate that individuals with the Val/Val BDNF genotype have poorer visual memory but higher spatial memory retention, indicating a level of interaction between TNF-α and BDNF in spatial memory retention. This is the first study to use genetic analysis to determine the interaction between BDNF and TNF-α in relation to memory in normal adults and provides important information regarding the effect of genetic determinants and gene interactions on human memory.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pachuilo, Andrew R; Ragan, Eric; Goodall, John R

Visualization tools can take advantage of multiple coordinated views to support analysis of large, multidimensional data sets. Effective design of such views and layouts can be challenging, but understanding users analysis strategies can inform design improvements. We outline an approach for intelligent design configuration of visualization tools with multiple coordinated views, and we discuss a proposed software framework to support the approach. The proposed software framework could capture and learn from user interaction data to automate new compositions of views and widgets. Such a framework could reduce the time needed for meta analysis of the visualization use and lead tomore » more effective visualization design.« less

Learned face-voice pairings facilitate visual search.

PubMed

Zweig, L Jacob; Suzuki, Satoru; Grabowecky, Marcia

2015-04-01

Voices provide a rich source of information that is important for identifying individuals and for social interaction. During search for a face in a crowd, voices often accompany visual information, and they facilitate localization of the sought-after individual. However, it is unclear whether this facilitation occurs primarily because the voice cues the location of the face or because it also increases the salience of the associated face. Here we demonstrate that a voice that provides no location information nonetheless facilitates visual search for an associated face. We trained novel face-voice associations and verified learning using a two-alternative forced choice task in which participants had to correctly match a presented voice to the associated face. Following training, participants searched for a previously learned target face among other faces while hearing one of the following sounds (localized at the center of the display): a congruent learned voice, an incongruent but familiar voice, an unlearned and unfamiliar voice, or a time-reversed voice. Only the congruent learned voice speeded visual search for the associated face. This result suggests that voices facilitate the visual detection of associated faces, potentially by increasing their visual salience, and that the underlying crossmodal associations can be established through brief training.

ActiviTree: interactive visual exploration of sequences in event-based data using graph similarity.

PubMed

Vrotsou, Katerina; Johansson, Jimmy; Cooper, Matthew

2009-01-01

The identification of significant sequences in large and complex event-based temporal data is a challenging problem with applications in many areas of today's information intensive society. Pure visual representations can be used for the analysis, but are constrained to small data sets. Algorithmic search mechanisms used for larger data sets become expensive as the data size increases and typically focus on frequency of occurrence to reduce the computational complexity, often overlooking important infrequent sequences and outliers. In this paper we introduce an interactive visual data mining approach based on an adaptation of techniques developed for web searching, combined with an intuitive visual interface, to facilitate user-centred exploration of the data and identification of sequences significant to that user. The search algorithm used in the exploration executes in negligible time, even for large data, and so no pre-processing of the selected data is required, making this a completely interactive experience for the user. Our particular application area is social science diary data but the technique is applicable across many other disciplines.

Interactive Classification of Construction Materials: Feedback Driven Framework for Annotation and Analysis of 3d Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hess, M. R.; Petrovic, V.; Kuester, F.

2017-08-01

Digital documentation of cultural heritage structures is increasingly more common through the application of different imaging techniques. Many works have focused on the application of laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques for the acquisition of threedimensional (3D) geometry detailing cultural heritage sites and structures. With an abundance of these 3D data assets, there must be a digital environment where these data can be visualized and analyzed. Presented here is a feedback driven visualization framework that seamlessly enables interactive exploration and manipulation of massive point cloud data. The focus of this work is on the classification of different building materials with the goal of building more accurate as-built information models of historical structures. User defined functions have been tested within the interactive point cloud visualization framework to evaluate automated and semi-automated classification of 3D point data. These functions include decisions based on observed color, laser intensity, normal vector or local surface geometry. Multiple case studies are presented here to demonstrate the flexibility and utility of the presented point cloud visualization framework to achieve classification objectives.

Employing WebGL to develop interactive stereoscopic 3D content for use in biomedical visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnston, Semay; Renambot, Luc; Sauter, Daniel

2013-03-01

Web Graphics Library (WebGL), the forthcoming web standard for rendering native 3D graphics in a browser, represents an important addition to the biomedical visualization toolset. It is projected to become a mainstream method of delivering 3D online content due to shrinking support for third-party plug-ins. Additionally, it provides a virtual reality (VR) experience to web users accommodated by the growing availability of stereoscopic displays (3D TV, desktop, and mobile). WebGL's value in biomedical visualization has been demonstrated by applications for interactive anatomical models, chemical and molecular visualization, and web-based volume rendering. However, a lack of instructional literature specific to the field prevents many from utilizing this technology. This project defines a WebGL design methodology for a target audience of biomedical artists with a basic understanding of web languages and 3D graphics. The methodology was informed by the development of an interactive web application depicting the anatomy and various pathologies of the human eye. The application supports several modes of stereoscopic displays for a better understanding of 3D anatomical structures.

GIS-based interactive tool to map the advent of world conquerors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lakkaraju, Mahesh

The objective of this thesis is to show the scale and extent of some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. This is a hybrid project between the GIS based interactive tool and the web-based JavaScript tool. This approach lets the students learn effectively about the emperors themselves while understanding how long and far their empires spread. In the GIS based tool, a map is displayed with various points on it, and when a user clicks on one point, the relevant information of what happened at that particular place is displayed. Apart from this information, users can also select the interactive animation button and can walk through a set of battles in chronological order. As mentioned, this uses Java as the main programming language, and MOJO (Map Objects Java Objects) provided by ESRI. MOJO is very effective as its GIS related features can be included in the application itself. This app. is a simple tool and has been developed for university or high school level students. D3.js is an interactive animation and visualization platform built on the Javascript framework. Though HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and SVG animations can be used to derive custom animations, this tool can help bring out results with less effort and more ease of use. Hence, it has become the most sought after visualization tool for multiple applications. D3.js has provided a map-based visualization feature so that we can easily display text-based data in a map-based interface. To draw the map and the points on it, D3.js uses data rendered in TOPO JSON format. The latitudes and longitudes can be provided, which are interpolated into the Map svg. One of the main advantages of doing it this way is that more information is retained when we use a visual medium.

What are they up to? The role of sensory evidence and prior knowledge in action understanding.

PubMed

Chambon, Valerian; Domenech, Philippe; Pacherie, Elisabeth; Koechlin, Etienne; Baraduc, Pierre; Farrer, Chlöé

2011-02-18

Explaining or predicting the behaviour of our conspecifics requires the ability to infer the intentions that motivate it. Such inferences are assumed to rely on two types of information: (1) the sensory information conveyed by movement kinematics and (2) the observer's prior expectations--acquired from past experience or derived from prior knowledge. However, the respective contribution of these two sources of information is still controversial. This controversy stems in part from the fact that "intention" is an umbrella term that may embrace various sub-types each being assigned different scopes and targets. We hypothesized that variations in the scope and target of intentions may account for variations in the contribution of visual kinematics and prior knowledge to the intention inference process. To test this hypothesis, we conducted four behavioural experiments in which participants were instructed to identify different types of intention: basic intentions (i.e. simple goal of a motor act), superordinate intentions (i.e. general goal of a sequence of motor acts), or social intentions (i.e. intentions accomplished in a context of reciprocal interaction). For each of the above-mentioned intentions, we varied (1) the amount of visual information available from the action scene and (2) participant's prior expectations concerning the intention that was more likely to be accomplished. First, we showed that intentional judgments depend on a consistent interaction between visual information and participant's prior expectations. Moreover, we demonstrated that this interaction varied according to the type of intention to be inferred, with participant's priors rather than perceptual evidence exerting a greater effect on the inference of social and superordinate intentions. The results are discussed by appealing to the specific properties of each type of intention considered and further interpreted in the light of a hierarchical model of action representation.

GeoCrystal: graphic-interactive access to geodata archives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goebel, Stefan; Haist, Joerg; Jasnoch, Uwe

2002-03-01

Recently there is spent a lot of effort to establish information systems and global infrastructures enabling both data suppliers and users to describe (-> eCommerce, metadata) as well as to find appropriate data. Examples for this are metadata information systems, online-shops or portals for geodata. The main disadvantages of existing approaches are insufficient methods and mechanisms leading users to (e.g. spatial) data archives. This affects aspects concerning usability and personalization in general as well as visual feedback techniques in the different steps of the information retrieval process. Several approaches aim at the improvement of graphical user interfaces by using intuitive metaphors, but only some of them offer 3D interfaces in the form of information landscapes or geographic result scenes in the context of information systems for geodata. This paper presents GeoCrystal, which basic idea is to adopt Venn diagrams to compose complex queries and to visualize search results in a 3D information and navigation space for geodata. These concepts are enhanced with spatial metaphors and 3D information landscapes (library for geodata) wherein users can specify searches for appropriate geodata and are enabled to graphic-interactively communicate with search results (book metaphor).

Cross-Modal Interactions in the Experience of Musical Performances: Physiological Correlates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chapados, Catherine; Levitin, Daniel J.

2008-01-01

This experiment was conducted to investigate cross-modal interactions in the emotional experience of music listeners. Previous research showed that visual information present in a musical performance is rich in expressive content, and moderates the subjective emotional experience of a participant listening and/or observing musical stimuli [Vines,…

Speed Limits: Orientation and Semantic Context Interactions Constrain Natural Scene Discrimination Dynamics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rieger, Jochem W.; Kochy, Nick; Schalk, Franziska; Gruschow, Marcus; Heinze, Hans-Jochen

2008-01-01

The visual system rapidly extracts information about objects from the cluttered natural environment. In 5 experiments, the authors quantified the influence of orientation and semantics on the classification speed of objects in natural scenes, particularly with regard to object-context interactions. Natural scene photographs were presented in an…

Beyond image quality: designing engaging interactions with digital products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Ridder, Huib; Rozendaal, Marco C.

2008-02-01

Ubiquitous computing (or Ambient Intelligence) promises a world in which information is available anytime anywhere and with which humans can interact in a natural, multimodal way. In such world, perceptual image quality remains an important criterion since most information will be displayed visually, but other criteria such as enjoyment, fun, engagement and hedonic quality are emerging. This paper deals with engagement, the intrinsically enjoyable readiness to put more effort into exploring and/or using a product than strictly required, thus attracting and keeping user's attention for a longer period of time. The impact of the experienced richness of an interface, both visually and degree of possible manipulations, was investigated in a series of experiments employing game-like user interfaces. This resulted in the extension of an existing conceptual framework relating engagement to richness by means of two intermediating variables, namely experienced challenge and sense of control. Predictions from this revised framework are evaluated against results of an earlier experiment assessing the ergonomic and hedonic qualities of interactive media. Test material consisted of interactive CD-ROM's containing presentations of three companies for future customers.

Maintenance of relational information in working memory leads to suppression of the sensory cortex.

PubMed

Ikkai, Akiko; Blacker, Kara J; Lakshmanan, Balaji M; Ewen, Joshua B; Courtney, Susan M

2014-10-15

Working memory (WM) for sensory-based information about individual objects and their locations appears to involve interactions between lateral prefrontal and sensory cortexes. The mechanisms and representations for maintenance of more abstract, nonsensory information in WM are unknown, particularly whether such actively maintained information can become independent of the sensory information from which it was derived. Previous studies of WM for individual visual items found increased electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha (8-13 Hz) power over posterior electrode sites, which appears to correspond to the suppression of cortical areas that represent irrelevant sensory information. Here, we recorded EEG while participants performed a visual WM task that involved maintaining either concrete spatial coordinates or abstract relational information. Maintenance of relational information resulted in higher alpha power in posterior electrodes. Furthermore, lateralization of alpha power due to a covert shift of attention to one visual hemifield was marginally weaker during storage of relational information than during storage of concrete information. These results suggest that abstract relational information is maintained in WM differently from concrete, sensory representations and that during maintenance of abstract information, posterior sensory regions become task irrelevant and are thus suppressed. Copyright © 2014 the American Physiological Society.

Teaching ocean wave forecasting using computer-generated visualization and animation—Part 2: swell forecasting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whitford, Dennis J.

2002-05-01

This paper, the second of a two-part series, introduces undergraduate students to ocean wave forecasting using interactive computer-generated visualization and animation. Verbal descriptions and two-dimensional illustrations are often insufficient for student comprehension. Fortunately, the introduction of computers in the geosciences provides a tool for addressing this problem. Computer-generated visualization and animation, accompanied by oral explanation, have been shown to be a pedagogical improvement to more traditional methods of instruction. Cartographic science and other disciplines using geographical information systems have been especially aggressive in pioneering the use of visualization and animation, whereas oceanography has not. This paper will focus on the teaching of ocean swell wave forecasting, often considered a difficult oceanographic topic due to the mathematics and physics required, as well as its interdependence on time and space. Several MATLAB ® software programs are described and offered to visualize and animate group speed, frequency dispersion, angular dispersion, propagation, and wave height forecasting of deep water ocean swell waves. Teachers may use these interactive visualizations and animations without requiring an extensive background in computer programming.

The role of vision in auditory distance perception.

PubMed

Calcagno, Esteban R; Abregú, Ezequiel L; Eguía, Manuel C; Vergara, Ramiro

2012-01-01

In humans, multisensory interaction is an important strategy for improving the detection of stimuli of different nature and reducing the variability of response. It is known that the presence of visual information affects the auditory perception in the horizontal plane (azimuth), but there are few researches that study the influence of vision in the auditory distance perception. In general, the data obtained from these studies are contradictory and do not completely define the way in which visual cues affect the apparent distance of a sound source. Here psychophysical experiments on auditory distance perception in humans are performed, including and excluding visual cues. The results show that the apparent distance from the source is affected by the presence of visual information and that subjects can store in their memory a representation of the environment that later improves the perception of distance.

Design and application of BIM based digital sand table for construction management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fuquan, JI; Jianqiang, LI; Weijia, LIU

2018-05-01

This paper explores the design and application of BIM based digital sand table for construction management. Aiming at the demands and features of construction management plan for bridge and tunnel engineering, the key functional features of digital sand table should include three-dimensional GIS, model navigation, virtual simulation, information layers, and data exchange, etc. That involving the technology of 3D visualization and 4D virtual simulation of BIM, breakdown structure of BIM model and project data, multi-dimensional information layers, and multi-source data acquisition and interaction. Totally, the digital sand table is a visual and virtual engineering information integrated terminal, under the unified data standard system. Also, the applications shall contain visual constructing scheme, virtual constructing schedule, and monitoring of construction, etc. Finally, the applicability of several basic software to the digital sand table is analyzed.

C-SPADE: a web-tool for interactive analysis and visualization of drug screening experiments through compound-specific bioactivity dendrograms

PubMed Central

Alam, Zaid; Peddinti, Gopal

2017-01-01

Abstract The advent of polypharmacology paradigm in drug discovery calls for novel chemoinformatic tools for analyzing compounds’ multi-targeting activities. Such tools should provide an intuitive representation of the chemical space through capturing and visualizing underlying patterns of compound similarities linked to their polypharmacological effects. Most of the existing compound-centric chemoinformatics tools lack interactive options and user interfaces that are critical for the real-time needs of chemical biologists carrying out compound screening experiments. Toward that end, we introduce C-SPADE, an open-source exploratory web-tool for interactive analysis and visualization of drug profiling assays (biochemical, cell-based or cell-free) using compound-centric similarity clustering. C-SPADE allows the users to visually map the chemical diversity of a screening panel, explore investigational compounds in terms of their similarity to the screening panel, perform polypharmacological analyses and guide drug-target interaction predictions. C-SPADE requires only the raw drug profiling data as input, and it automatically retrieves the structural information and constructs the compound clusters in real-time, thereby reducing the time required for manual analysis in drug development or repurposing applications. The web-tool provides a customizable visual workspace that can either be downloaded as figure or Newick tree file or shared as a hyperlink with other users. C-SPADE is freely available at http://cspade.fimm.fi/. PMID:28472495

Workflows and individual differences during visually guided routine tasks in a road traffic management control room.

PubMed

Starke, Sandra D; Baber, Chris; Cooke, Neil J; Howes, Andrew

2017-05-01

Road traffic control rooms rely on human operators to monitor and interact with information presented on multiple displays. Past studies have found inconsistent use of available visual information sources in such settings across different domains. In this study, we aimed to broaden the understanding of observer behaviour in control rooms by analysing a case study in road traffic control. We conducted a field study in a live road traffic control room where five operators responded to incidents while wearing a mobile eye tracker. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, we investigated the operators' workflow using ergonomics methods and quantified visual information sampling. We found that individuals showed differing preferences for viewing modalities and weighting of task components, with a strong coupling between eye and head movement. For the quantitative analysis of the eye tracking data, we propose a number of metrics which may prove useful to compare visual sampling behaviour across domains in future. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Can you hear me yet? An intracranial investigation of speech and non-speech audiovisual interactions in human cortex.

PubMed

Rhone, Ariane E; Nourski, Kirill V; Oya, Hiroyuki; Kawasaki, Hiroto; Howard, Matthew A; McMurray, Bob

In everyday conversation, viewing a talker's face can provide information about the timing and content of an upcoming speech signal, resulting in improved intelligibility. Using electrocorticography, we tested whether human auditory cortex in Heschl's gyrus (HG) and on superior temporal gyrus (STG) and motor cortex on precentral gyrus (PreC) were responsive to visual/gestural information prior to the onset of sound and whether early stages of auditory processing were sensitive to the visual content (speech syllable versus non-speech motion). Event-related band power (ERBP) in the high gamma band was content-specific prior to acoustic onset on STG and PreC, and ERBP in the beta band differed in all three areas. Following sound onset, we found with no evidence for content-specificity in HG, evidence for visual specificity in PreC, and specificity for both modalities in STG. These results support models of audio-visual processing in which sensory information is integrated in non-primary cortical areas.

Visualization of Computational Fluid Dynamics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gerald-Yamasaki, Michael; Hultquist, Jeff; Bryson, Steve; Kenwright, David; Lane, David; Walatka, Pamela; Clucas, Jean; Watson, Velvin; Lasinski, T. A. (Technical Monitor)

1995-01-01

Scientific visualization serves the dual purpose of exploration and exposition of the results of numerical simulations of fluid flow. Along with the basic visualization process which transforms source data into images, there are four additional components to a complete visualization system: Source Data Processing, User Interface and Control, Presentation, and Information Management. The requirements imposed by the desired mode of operation (i.e. real-time, interactive, or batch) and the source data have their effect on each of these visualization system components. The special requirements imposed by the wide variety and size of the source data provided by the numerical simulation of fluid flow presents an enormous challenge to the visualization system designer. We describe the visualization system components including specific visualization techniques and how the mode of operation and source data requirements effect the construction of computational fluid dynamics visualization systems.

Common Ground: An Interactive Visual Exploration and Discovery for Complex Health Data

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-04-01

working with Intermountain Healthcare on a new rich dataset extracted directly from medical notes using natural language processing ( NLP ) algorithms...probabilities based on a state- of-the-art NLP classifiers. At that stage the data did not include geographic information or temporal information but we

Drawing from Memory: Hand-Eye Coordination at Multiple Scales

PubMed Central

Spivey, Michael J.

2013-01-01

Eyes move to gather visual information for the purpose of guiding behavior. This guidance takes the form of perceptual-motor interactions on short timescales for behaviors like locomotion and hand-eye coordination. More complex behaviors require perceptual-motor interactions on longer timescales mediated by memory, such as navigation, or designing and building artifacts. In the present study, the task of sketching images of natural scenes from memory was used to examine and compare perceptual-motor interactions on shorter and longer timescales. Eye and pen trajectories were found to be coordinated in time on shorter timescales during drawing, and also on longer timescales spanning study and drawing periods. The latter type of coordination was found by developing a purely spatial analysis that yielded measures of similarity between images, eye trajectories, and pen trajectories. These results challenge the notion that coordination only unfolds on short timescales. Rather, the task of drawing from memory evokes perceptual-motor encodings of visual images that preserve coarse-grained spatial information over relatively long timescales as well. PMID:23554894

The User Interface: The Point of Competition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tufte, Edward

1992-01-01

Discusses the importance of skillful visual design of computer screens and provides guidelines for screen design in the areas of information resolution, interaction of design elements, color, and typography and icons. (MES)

Audio-visual interactions in environment assessment.

PubMed

Preis, Anna; Kociński, Jędrzej; Hafke-Dys, Honorata; Wrzosek, Małgorzata

2015-08-01

The aim of the study was to examine how visual and audio information influences audio-visual environment assessment. Original audio-visual recordings were made at seven different places in the city of Poznań. Participants of the psychophysical experiments were asked to rate, on a numerical standardized scale, the degree of comfort they would feel if they were in such an environment. The assessments of audio-visual comfort were carried out in a laboratory in four different conditions: (a) audio samples only, (b) original audio-visual samples, (c) video samples only, and (d) mixed audio-visual samples. The general results of this experiment showed a significant difference between the investigated conditions, but not for all the investigated samples. There was a significant improvement in comfort assessment when visual information was added (in only three out of 7 cases), when conditions (a) and (b) were compared. On the other hand, the results show that the comfort assessment of audio-visual samples could be changed by manipulating the audio rather than the video part of the audio-visual sample. Finally, it seems, that people could differentiate audio-visual representations of a given place in the environment based rather of on the sound sources' compositions than on the sound level. Object identification is responsible for both landscape and soundscape grouping. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Superadditive responses in superior temporal sulcus predict audiovisual benefits in object categorization.

PubMed

Werner, Sebastian; Noppeney, Uta

2010-08-01

Merging information from multiple senses provides a more reliable percept of our environment. Yet, little is known about where and how various sensory features are combined within the cortical hierarchy. Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging and psychophysics, we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying integration of audiovisual object features. Subjects categorized or passively perceived audiovisual object stimuli with the informativeness (i.e., degradation) of the auditory and visual modalities being manipulated factorially. Controlling for low-level integration processes, we show higher level audiovisual integration selectively in the superior temporal sulci (STS) bilaterally. The multisensory interactions were primarily subadditive and even suppressive for intact stimuli but turned into additive effects for degraded stimuli. Consistent with the inverse effectiveness principle, auditory and visual informativeness determine the profile of audiovisual integration in STS similarly to the influence of physical stimulus intensity in the superior colliculus. Importantly, when holding stimulus degradation constant, subjects' audiovisual behavioral benefit predicts their multisensory integration profile in STS: only subjects that benefit from multisensory integration exhibit superadditive interactions, while those that do not benefit show suppressive interactions. In conclusion, superadditive and subadditive integration profiles in STS are functionally relevant and related to behavioral indices of multisensory integration with superadditive interactions mediating successful audiovisual object categorization.

Comparative Study on Interaction of Form and Motion Processing Streams by Applying Two Different Classifiers in Mechanism for Recognition of Biological Movement

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Research on psychophysics, neurophysiology, and functional imaging shows particular representation of biological movements which contains two pathways. The visual perception of biological movements formed through the visual system called dorsal and ventral processing streams. Ventral processing stream is associated with the form information extraction; on the other hand, dorsal processing stream provides motion information. Active basic model (ABM) as hierarchical representation of the human object had revealed novelty in form pathway due to applying Gabor based supervised object recognition method. It creates more biological plausibility along with similarity with original model. Fuzzy inference system is used for motion pattern information in motion pathway creating more robustness in recognition process. Besides, interaction of these paths is intriguing and many studies in various fields considered it. Here, the interaction of the pathways to get more appropriated results has been investigated. Extreme learning machine (ELM) has been implied for classification unit of this model, due to having the main properties of artificial neural networks, but crosses from the difficulty of training time substantially diminished in it. Here, there will be a comparison between two different configurations, interactions using synergetic neural network and ELM, in terms of accuracy and compatibility. PMID:25276860

Visualizing Mars Using Virtual Reality: A State of the Art Mapping Technique Used on Mars Pathfinder

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stoker, C.; Zbinden, E.; Blackmon, T.; Nguyen, L.

1999-01-01

We describe an interactive terrain visualization system which rapidly generates and interactively displays photorealistic three-dimensional (3-D) models produced from stereo images. This product, first demonstrated in Mars Pathfinder, is interactive, 3-D, and can be viewed in an immersive display which qualifies it for the name Virtual Reality (VR). The use of this technology on Mars Pathfinder was the first use of VR for geologic analysis. A primary benefit of using VR to display geologic information is that it provides an improved perception of depth and spatial layout of the remote site. The VR aspect of the display allows an operator to move freely in the environment, unconstrained by the physical limitations of the perspective from which the data were acquired. Virtual Reality offers a way to archive and retrieve information in a way that is intuitively obvious. Combining VR models with stereo display systems can give the user a sense of presence at the remote location. The capability, to interactively perform measurements from within the VR model offers unprecedented ease in performing operations that are normally time consuming and difficult using other techniques. Thus, Virtual Reality can be a powerful a cartographic tool. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Concept mapping One-Carbon Metabolism to model future ontologies for nutrient-gene-phenotype interactions.

PubMed

Joslin, A C; Green, R; German, J B; Lange, M C

2014-09-01

Advances in the development of bioinformatic tools continue to improve investigators' ability to interrogate, organize, and derive knowledge from large amounts of heterogeneous information. These tools often require advanced technical skills not possessed by life scientists. User-friendly, low-barrier-to-entry methods of visualizing nutrigenomics information are yet to be developed. We utilized concept mapping software from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition to create a conceptual model of diet and health-related data that provides a foundation for future nutrigenomics ontologies describing published nutrient-gene/polymorphism-phenotype data. In this model, maps containing phenotype, nutrient, gene product, and genetic polymorphism interactions are visualized as triples of two concepts linked together by a linking phrase. These triples, or "knowledge propositions," contextualize aggregated data and information into easy-to-read knowledge maps. Maps of these triples enable visualization of genes spanning the One-Carbon Metabolism (OCM) pathway, their sequence variants, and multiple literature-mined associations including concepts relevant to nutrition, phenotypes, and health. The concept map development process documents the incongruity of information derived from pathway databases versus literature resources. This conceptual model highlights the importance of incorporating information about genes in upstream pathways that provide substrates, as well as downstream pathways that utilize products of the pathway under investigation, in this case OCM. Other genes and their polymorphisms, such as TCN2 and FUT2, although not directly involved in OCM, potentially alter OCM pathway functionality. These upstream gene products regulate substrates such as B12. Constellations of polymorphisms affecting the functionality of genes along OCM, together with substrate and cofactor availability, may impact resultant phenotypes. These conceptual maps provide a foundational framework for development of nutrient-gene/polymorphism-phenotype ontologies and systems visualization.

Enhanced audio-visual interactions in the auditory cortex of elderly cochlear-implant users.

PubMed

Schierholz, Irina; Finke, Mareike; Schulte, Svenja; Hauthal, Nadine; Kantzke, Christoph; Rach, Stefan; Büchner, Andreas; Dengler, Reinhard; Sandmann, Pascale

2015-10-01

Auditory deprivation and the restoration of hearing via a cochlear implant (CI) can induce functional plasticity in auditory cortical areas. How these plastic changes affect the ability to integrate combined auditory (A) and visual (V) information is not yet well understood. In the present study, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine whether age, temporary deafness and altered sensory experience with a CI can affect audio-visual (AV) interactions in post-lingually deafened CI users. Young and elderly CI users and age-matched NH listeners performed a speeded response task on basic auditory, visual and audio-visual stimuli. Regarding the behavioral results, a redundant signals effect, that is, faster response times to cross-modal (AV) than to both of the two modality-specific stimuli (A, V), was revealed for all groups of participants. Moreover, in all four groups, we found evidence for audio-visual integration. Regarding event-related responses (ERPs), we observed a more pronounced visual modulation of the cortical auditory response at N1 latency (approximately 100 ms after stimulus onset) in the elderly CI users when compared with young CI users and elderly NH listeners. Thus, elderly CI users showed enhanced audio-visual binding which may be a consequence of compensatory strategies developed due to temporary deafness and/or degraded sensory input after implantation. These results indicate that the combination of aging, sensory deprivation and CI facilitates the coupling between the auditory and the visual modality. We suggest that this enhancement in multisensory interactions could be used to optimize auditory rehabilitation, especially in elderly CI users, by the application of strong audio-visually based rehabilitation strategies after implant switch-on. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Video as a technology for interpersonal communications: a new perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whittaker, Steve

1995-03-01

Some of the most challenging multimedia applications have involved real- time conferencing, using audio and video to support interpersonal communication. Here we re-examine assumptions about the role, importance and implementation of video information in such systems. Rather than focussing on novel technologies, we present evaluation data relevant to both the classes of real-time multimedia applications we should develop and their design and implementation. Evaluations of videoconferencing systems show that previous work has overestimated the importance of video at the expense of audio. This has strong implications for the implementation of bandwidth allocation and synchronization. Furthermore our recent studies of workplace interaction show that prior work has neglected another potentially vital function of visual information: in assessing the communication availability of others. In this new class of application, rather than providing a supplement to audio information, visual information is used to promote the opportunistic communications that are prevalent in face-to-face settings. We discuss early experiments with such connection applications and identify outstanding design and implementation issues. Finally we examine a different class of application 'video-as-data', where the video image is used to transmit information about the work objects themselves, rather than information about interactants.

Building the Joint Battlespace Infosphere. Volume 2: Interactive Information Technologies

DTIC Science & Technology

1999-12-17

G. A . Vouros, “ A Knowledge- Based Methodology for Supporting Multilingual and User -Tailored Interfaces ,” Interacting With Computers, Vol. 9 (1998), p...project is to develop a two-handed user interface to the stereoscopic field analyzer, an interactive 3-D scientific visualization system. The...62 See http://www.hitl.washington.edu/research/vrd/. 63 R. Baumann and R. Clavel, “Haptic Interface for Virtual Reality Based

Finding Waldo: Learning about Users from their Interactions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brown, Eli T.; Ottley, Alvitta; Zhao, Helen

Visual analytics is inherently a collaboration between human and computer. However, in current visual analytics systems, the computer has limited means of knowing about its users and their analysis processes. While existing research has shown that a user’s interactions with a system reflect a large amount of the user’s reasoning process, there has been limited advancement in developing automated, real-time techniques that mine interactions to learn about the user. In this paper, we demonstrate that we can accurately predict a user’s task performance and infer some user personality traits by using machine learning techniques to analyze interaction data. Specifically, wemore » conduct an experiment in which participants perform a visual search task and we apply well-known machine learning algorithms to three encodings of the users interaction data. We achieve, depending on algorithm and encoding, between 62% and 96% accuracy at predicting whether each user will be fast or slow at completing the task. Beyond predicting performance, we demonstrate that using the same techniques, we can infer aspects of the user’s personality factors, including locus of control, extraversion, and neuroticism. Further analyses show that strong results can be attained with limited observation time, in some cases, 82% of the final accuracy is gained after a quarter of the average task completion time. Overall, our findings show that interactions can provide information to the computer about its human collaborator, and establish a foundation for realizing mixed- initiative visual analytics systems.« less

A Bayesian Account of Visual-Vestibular Interactions in the Rod-and-Frame Task.

PubMed

Alberts, Bart B G T; de Brouwer, Anouk J; Selen, Luc P J; Medendorp, W Pieter

2016-01-01

Panoramic visual cues, as generated by the objects in the environment, provide the brain with important information about gravity direction. To derive an optimal, i.e., Bayesian, estimate of gravity direction, the brain must combine panoramic information with gravity information detected by the vestibular system. Here, we examined the individual sensory contributions to this estimate psychometrically. We asked human subjects to judge the orientation (clockwise or counterclockwise relative to gravity) of a briefly flashed luminous rod, presented within an oriented square frame (rod-in-frame). Vestibular contributions were manipulated by tilting the subject's head, whereas visual contributions were manipulated by changing the viewing distance of the rod and frame. Results show a cyclical modulation of the frame-induced bias in perceived verticality across a 90° range of frame orientations. The magnitude of this bias decreased significantly with larger viewing distance, as if visual reliability was reduced. Biases increased significantly when the head was tilted, as if vestibular reliability was reduced. A Bayesian optimal integration model, with distinct vertical and horizontal panoramic weights, a gain factor to allow for visual reliability changes, and ocular counterroll in response to head tilt, provided a good fit to the data. We conclude that subjects flexibly weigh visual panoramic and vestibular information based on their orientation-dependent reliability, resulting in the observed verticality biases and the associated response variabilities.

Regions of mid-level human visual cortex sensitive to the global coherence of local image patches.

PubMed

Mannion, Damien J; Kersten, Daniel J; Olman, Cheryl A

2014-08-01

The global structural arrangement and spatial layout of the visual environment must be derived from the integration of local signals represented in the lower tiers of the visual system. This interaction between the spatially local and global properties of visual stimulation underlies many of our visual capacities, and how this is achieved in the brain is a central question for visual and cognitive neuroscience. Here, we examine the sensitivity of regions of the posterior human brain to the global coordination of spatially displaced naturalistic image patches. We presented observers with image patches in two circular apertures to the left and right of central fixation, with the patches drawn from either the same (coherent condition) or different (noncoherent condition) extended image. Using fMRI at 7T (n = 5), we find that global coherence affected signal amplitude in regions of dorsal mid-level cortex. Furthermore, we find that extensive regions of mid-level visual cortex contained information in their local activity pattern that could discriminate coherent and noncoherent stimuli. These findings indicate that the global coordination of local naturalistic image information has important consequences for the processing in human mid-level visual cortex.

The case of the missing visual details: Occlusion and long-term visual memory.

PubMed

Williams, Carrick C; Burkle, Kyle A

2017-10-01

To investigate the critical information in long-term visual memory representations of objects, we used occlusion to emphasize 1 type of information or another. By occluding 1 solid side of the object (e.g., top 50%) or by occluding 50% of the object with stripes (like a picket fence), we emphasized visible information about the object, processing the visible details in the former and the object's overall form in the latter. On a token discrimination test, surprisingly, memory for solid or stripe occluded objects at either encoding (Experiment 1) or test (Experiment 2) was the same. In contrast, when occluded objects matched at encoding and test (Experiment 3) or when the occlusion shifted, revealing the entire object piecemeal (Experiment 4), memory was better for solid compared with stripe occluded objects, indicating that objects are represented differently in long-term visual memory. Critically, we also found that when the task emphasized remembering exactly what was shown, memory performance in the more detailed solid occlusion condition exceeded that in the stripe condition (Experiment 5). However, when the task emphasized the whole object form, memory was better in the stripe condition (Experiment 6) than in the solid condition. We argue that long-term visual memory can represent objects flexibly, and task demands can interact with visual information, allowing the viewer to cope with changing real-world visual environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the Micro-Social Geography of Children's Interactions in Preschool: A Long-Term Observational Study and Analysis Using Geographic Information Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Torrens, Paul M.; Griffin, William A.

2013-01-01

The authors describe an observational and analytic methodology for recording and interpreting dynamic microprocesses that occur during social interaction, making use of space--time data collection techniques, spatial-statistical analysis, and visualization. The scheme has three investigative foci: Structure, Activity Composition, and Clustering.…

Overview of EVE - the event visualization environment of ROOT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tadel, Matevž

2010-04-01

EVE is a high-level visualization library using ROOT's data-processing, GUI and OpenGL interfaces. It is designed as a framework for object management offering hierarchical data organization, object interaction and visualization via GUI and OpenGL representations. Automatic creation of 2D projected views is also supported. On the other hand, it can serve as an event visualization toolkit satisfying most HEP requirements: visualization of geometry, simulated and reconstructed data such as hits, clusters, tracks and calorimeter information. Special classes are available for visualization of raw-data. Object-interaction layer allows for easy selection and highlighting of objects and their derived representations (projections) across several views (3D, Rho-Z, R-Phi). Object-specific tooltips are provided in both GUI and GL views. The visual-configuration layer of EVE is built around a data-base of template objects that can be applied to specific instances of visualization objects to ensure consistent object presentation. The data-base can be retrieved from a file, edited during the framework operation and stored to file. EVE prototype was developed within the ALICE collaboration and has been included into ROOT in December 2007. Since then all EVE components have reached maturity. EVE is used as the base of AliEve visualization framework in ALICE, Firework physics-oriented event-display in CMS, and as the visualization engine of FairRoot in FAIR.

Emergency Response Virtual Environment for Safe Schools

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wasfy, Ayman; Walker, Teresa

2008-01-01

An intelligent emergency response virtual environment (ERVE) that provides emergency first responders, response planners, and managers with situational awareness as well as training and support for safe schools is presented. ERVE incorporates an intelligent agent facility for guiding and assisting the user in the context of the emergency response operations. Response information folders capture key information about the school. The system enables interactive 3D visualization of schools and academic campuses, including the terrain and the buildings' exteriors and interiors in an easy to use Web..based interface. ERVE incorporates live camera and sensors feeds and can be integrated with other simulations such as chemical plume simulation. The system is integrated with a Geographical Information System (GIS) to enable situational awareness of emergency events and assessment of their effect on schools in a geographic area. ERVE can also be integrated with emergency text messaging notification systems. Using ERVE, it is now possible to address safe schools' emergency management needs with a scaleable, seamlessly integrated and fully interactive intelligent and visually compelling solution.

Iterative Integration of Visual Insights during Scalable Patent Search and Analysis.

PubMed

Koch, S; Bosch, H; Giereth, M; Ertl, T

2011-05-01

Patents are of growing importance in current economic markets. Analyzing patent information has, therefore, become a common task for many interest groups. As a prerequisite for patent analysis, extensive search for relevant patent information is essential. Unfortunately, the complexity of patent material inhibits a straightforward retrieval of all relevant patent documents and leads to iterative, time-consuming approaches in practice. Already the amount of patent data to be analyzed poses challenges with respect to scalability. Further scalability issues arise concerning the diversity of users and the large variety of analysis tasks. With "PatViz", a system for interactive analysis of patent information has been developed addressing scalability at various levels. PatViz provides a visual environment allowing for interactive reintegration of insights into subsequent search iterations, thereby bridging the gap between search and analytic processes. Because of its extensibility, we expect that the approach we have taken can be employed in different problem domains that require high quality of search results regarding their completeness.

Aging and the interaction of sensory cortical function and structure.

PubMed

Peiffer, Ann M; Hugenschmidt, Christina E; Maldjian, Joseph A; Casanova, Ramon; Srikanth, Ryali; Hayasaka, Satoru; Burdette, Jonathan H; Kraft, Robert A; Laurienti, Paul J

2009-01-01

Even the healthiest older adults experience changes in cognitive and sensory function. Studies show that older adults have reduced neural responses to sensory information. However, it is well known that sensory systems do not act in isolation but function cooperatively to either enhance or suppress neural responses to individual environmental stimuli. Very little research has been dedicated to understanding how aging affects the interactions between sensory systems, especially cross-modal deactivations or the ability of one sensory system (e.g., audition) to suppress the neural responses in another sensory system cortex (e.g., vision). Such cross-modal interactions have been implicated in attentional shifts between sensory modalities and could account for increased distractibility in older adults. To assess age-related changes in cross-modal deactivations, functional MRI studies were performed in 61 adults between 18 and 80 years old during simple auditory and visual discrimination tasks. Results within visual cortex confirmed previous findings of decreased responses to visual stimuli for older adults. Age-related changes in the visual cortical response to auditory stimuli were, however, much more complex and suggested an alteration with age in the functional interactions between the senses. Ventral visual cortical regions exhibited cross-modal deactivations in younger but not older adults, whereas more dorsal aspects of visual cortex were suppressed in older but not younger adults. These differences in deactivation also remained after adjusting for age-related reductions in brain volume of sensory cortex. Thus, functional differences in cortical activity between older and younger adults cannot solely be accounted for by differences in gray matter volume. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Feature saliency and feedback information interactively impact visual category learning

PubMed Central

Hammer, Rubi; Sloutsky, Vladimir; Grill-Spector, Kalanit

2015-01-01

Visual category learning (VCL) involves detecting which features are most relevant for categorization. VCL relies on attentional learning, which enables effectively redirecting attention to object’s features most relevant for categorization, while ‘filtering out’ irrelevant features. When features relevant for categorization are not salient, VCL relies also on perceptual learning, which enables becoming more sensitive to subtle yet important differences between objects. Little is known about how attentional learning and perceptual learning interact when VCL relies on both processes at the same time. Here we tested this interaction. Participants performed VCL tasks in which they learned to categorize novel stimuli by detecting the feature dimension relevant for categorization. Tasks varied both in feature saliency (low-saliency tasks that required perceptual learning vs. high-saliency tasks), and in feedback information (tasks with mid-information, moderately ambiguous feedback that increased attentional load, vs. tasks with high-information non-ambiguous feedback). We found that mid-information and high-information feedback were similarly effective for VCL in high-saliency tasks. This suggests that an increased attentional load, associated with the processing of moderately ambiguous feedback, has little effect on VCL when features are salient. In low-saliency tasks, VCL relied on slower perceptual learning; but when the feedback was highly informative participants were able to ultimately attain the same performance as during the high-saliency VCL tasks. However, VCL was significantly compromised in the low-saliency mid-information feedback task. We suggest that such low-saliency mid-information learning scenarios are characterized by a ‘cognitive loop paradox’ where two interdependent learning processes have to take place simultaneously. PMID:25745404

SmartR: an open-source platform for interactive visual analytics for translational research data

PubMed Central

Herzinger, Sascha; Gu, Wei; Satagopam, Venkata; Eifes, Serge; Rege, Kavita; Barbosa-Silva, Adriano; Schneider, Reinhard

2017-01-01

Abstract Summary: In translational research, efficient knowledge exchange between the different fields of expertise is crucial. An open platform that is capable of storing a multitude of data types such as clinical, pre-clinical or OMICS data combined with strong visual analytical capabilities will significantly accelerate the scientific progress by making data more accessible and hypothesis generation easier. The open data warehouse tranSMART is capable of storing a variety of data types and has a growing user community including both academic institutions and pharmaceutical companies. tranSMART, however, currently lacks interactive and dynamic visual analytics and does not permit any post-processing interaction or exploration. For this reason, we developed SmartR, a plugin for tranSMART, that equips the platform not only with several dynamic visual analytical workflows, but also provides its own framework for the addition of new custom workflows. Modern web technologies such as D3.js or AngularJS were used to build a set of standard visualizations that were heavily improved with dynamic elements. Availability and Implementation: The source code is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License and is freely available on GitHub: https://github.com/transmart/SmartR. Contact: reinhard.schneider@uni.lu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:28334291

Reduced response cluster size in early visual areas explains the acuity deficit in amblyopia.

PubMed

Huang, Yufeng; Feng, Lixia; Zhou, Yifeng

2017-05-03

Focal visual stimulation typically results in the activation of a large portion of the early visual cortex. This spread of activity is attributed to long-range lateral interactions. Such long-range interactions may serve to stabilize a visual representation or to simply modulate incoming signals, and any associated dysfunction in long-range activation may reduce sensitivity to visual information in conditions such as amblyopia. We sought to measure the dispersion of cortical activity following local visual stimulation in a group of patients with amblyopia and matched normal. Twenty adult anisometropic amblyopes and 10 normal controls participated in this study. Using a multifocal stimulation, we simultaneously measured cluster sizes to multiple stimulation points in the visual field. We found that the functional MRI (fMRI) response cluster size that corresponded to the fellow eye was significantly larger as opposed to that corresponding to the amblyopic eye and that the fMRI response cluster size at the two more central retinotopic locations correlated with amblyopia acuity deficit. Our results suggest that the amblyopic visual cortex has a diminished long-range communication as evidenced by significantly smaller cluster of activity as measured with fMRI. These results have important implications for models of amblyopia and approaches to treatment.

SmartAdP: Visual Analytics of Large-scale Taxi Trajectories for Selecting Billboard Locations.

PubMed

Liu, Dongyu; Weng, Di; Li, Yuhong; Bao, Jie; Zheng, Yu; Qu, Huamin; Wu, Yingcai

2017-01-01

The problem of formulating solutions immediately and comparing them rapidly for billboard placements has plagued advertising planners for a long time, owing to the lack of efficient tools for in-depth analyses to make informed decisions. In this study, we attempt to employ visual analytics that combines the state-of-the-art mining and visualization techniques to tackle this problem using large-scale GPS trajectory data. In particular, we present SmartAdP, an interactive visual analytics system that deals with the two major challenges including finding good solutions in a huge solution space and comparing the solutions in a visual and intuitive manner. An interactive framework that integrates a novel visualization-driven data mining model enables advertising planners to effectively and efficiently formulate good candidate solutions. In addition, we propose a set of coupled visualizations: a solution view with metaphor-based glyphs to visualize the correlation between different solutions; a location view to display billboard locations in a compact manner; and a ranking view to present multi-typed rankings of the solutions. This system has been demonstrated using case studies with a real-world dataset and domain-expert interviews. Our approach can be adapted for other location selection problems such as selecting locations of retail stores or restaurants using trajectory data.

Applying the metro map to software development management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguirregoitia, Amaia; Dolado, J. Javier; Presedo, Concepción

2010-01-01

This paper presents MetroMap, a new graphical representation model for controlling and managing the software development process. Metromap uses metaphors and visual representation techniques to explore several key indicators in order to support problem detection and resolution. The resulting visualization addresses diverse management tasks, such as tracking of deviations from the plan, analysis of patterns of failure detection and correction, overall assessment of change management policies, and estimation of product quality. The proposed visualization uses a metaphor with a metro map along with various interactive techniques to represent information concerning the software development process and to deal efficiently with multivariate visual queries. Finally, the paper shows the implementation of the tool in JavaFX with data of a real project and the results of testing the tool with the aforementioned data and users attempting several information retrieval tasks. The conclusion shows the results of analyzing user response time and efficiency using the MetroMap visualization system. The utility of the tool was positively evaluated.

An amodal shared resource model of language-mediated visual attention

PubMed Central

Smith, Alastair C.; Monaghan, Padraic; Huettig, Falk

2013-01-01

Language-mediated visual attention describes the interaction of two fundamental components of the human cognitive system, language and vision. Within this paper we present an amodal shared resource model of language-mediated visual attention that offers a description of the information and processes involved in this complex multimodal behavior and a potential explanation for how this ability is acquired. We demonstrate that the model is not only sufficient to account for the experimental effects of Visual World Paradigm studies but also that these effects are emergent properties of the architecture of the model itself, rather than requiring separate information processing channels or modular processing systems. The model provides an explicit description of the connection between the modality-specific input from language and vision and the distribution of eye gaze in language-mediated visual attention. The paper concludes by discussing future applications for the model, specifically its potential for investigating the factors driving observed individual differences in language-mediated eye gaze. PMID:23966967

Data Flow Analysis and Visualization for Spatiotemporal Statistical Data without Trajectory Information.

PubMed

Kim, Seokyeon; Jeong, Seongmin; Woo, Insoo; Jang, Yun; Maciejewski, Ross; Ebert, David S

2018-03-01

Geographic visualization research has focused on a variety of techniques to represent and explore spatiotemporal data. The goal of those techniques is to enable users to explore events and interactions over space and time in order to facilitate the discovery of patterns, anomalies and relationships within the data. However, it is difficult to extract and visualize data flow patterns over time for non-directional statistical data without trajectory information. In this work, we develop a novel flow analysis technique to extract, represent, and analyze flow maps of non-directional spatiotemporal data unaccompanied by trajectory information. We estimate a continuous distribution of these events over space and time, and extract flow fields for spatial and temporal changes utilizing a gravity model. Then, we visualize the spatiotemporal patterns in the data by employing flow visualization techniques. The user is presented with temporal trends of geo-referenced discrete events on a map. As such, overall spatiotemporal data flow patterns help users analyze geo-referenced temporal events, such as disease outbreaks, crime patterns, etc. To validate our model, we discard the trajectory information in an origin-destination dataset and apply our technique to the data and compare the derived trajectories and the original. Finally, we present spatiotemporal trend analysis for statistical datasets including twitter data, maritime search and rescue events, and syndromic surveillance.

Common Molecules: Bringing Research and Teaching Together through an Online Collection.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sandvoss, Leah M.; Harwood, William S.; Korkmaz, Ali; Bollinger, John C.; Huffman, John C.; Huffman, John N.

2003-01-01

Describes the design of a Common Molecules collection that provides interactive tools for 3-D visualization of molecules. The organizational design provides not only structural information, but also historical and/or key information on the properties of the molecules in the collection. Describes student use of the collection and the role of…

Visualization of risk structures for interactive planning of image guided radiofrequency ablation of liver tumors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rieder, Christian; Schwier, Michael; Weihusen, Andreas; Zidowitz, Stephan; Peitgen, Heinz-Otto

2009-02-01

Image guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is becoming a standard procedure as a minimally invasive method for tumor treatment in the clinical routine. The visualization of pathological tissue and potential risk structures like vessels or important organs gives essential support in image guided pre-interventional RFA planning. In this work our aim is to present novel visualization techniques for interactive RFA planning to support the physician with spatial information of pathological structures as well as the finding of trajectories without harming vitally important tissue. Furthermore, we illustrate three-dimensional applicator models of different manufactures combined with corresponding ablation areas in homogenous tissue, as specified by the manufacturers, to enhance the estimated amount of cell destruction caused by ablation. The visualization techniques are embedded in a workflow oriented application, designed for the use in the clinical routine. To allow a high-quality volume rendering we integrated a visualization method using the fuzzy c-means algorithm. This method automatically defines a transfer function for volume visualization of vessels without the need of a segmentation mask. However, insufficient visualization results of the displayed vessels caused by low data quality can be improved using local vessel segmentation in the vicinity of the lesion. We also provide an interactive segmentation technique of liver tumors for the volumetric measurement and for the visualization of pathological tissue combined with anatomical structures. In order to support coagulation estimation with respect to the heat-sink effect of the cooling blood flow which decreases thermal ablation, a numerical simulation of the heat distribution is provided.

Long-range functional interactions of anterior insula and medial frontal cortex are differently modulated by visuospatial and inductive reasoning tasks.

PubMed

Ebisch, Sjoerd J H; Mantini, Dante; Romanelli, Roberta; Tommasi, Marco; Perrucci, Mauro G; Romani, Gian Luca; Colom, Roberto; Saggino, Aristide

2013-09-01

The brain is organized into functionally specific networks as characterized by intrinsic functional relationships within discrete sets of brain regions. However, it is poorly understood whether such functional networks are dynamically organized according to specific task-states. The anterior insular cortex (aIC)-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)/medial frontal cortex (mFC) network has been proposed to play a central role in human cognitive abilities. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed at testing whether functional interactions of the aIC-dACC/mFC network in terms of temporally correlated patterns of neural activity across brain regions are dynamically modulated by transitory, ongoing task demands. For this purpose, functional interactions of the aIC-dACC/mFC network are compared during two distinguishable fluid reasoning tasks, Visualization and Induction. The results show an increased functional coupling of bilateral aIC with visual cortices in the occipital lobe during the Visualization task, whereas coupling of mFC with right anterior frontal cortex was enhanced during the Induction task. These task-specific modulations of functional interactions likely reflect ability related neural processing. Furthermore, functional connectivity strength between right aIC and right dACC/mFC reliably predicts general task performance. The findings suggest that the analysis of long-range functional interactions may provide complementary information about brain-behavior relationships. On the basis of our results, it is proposed that the aIC-dACC/mFC network contributes to the integration of task-common and task-specific information based on its within-network as well as its between-network dynamic functional interactions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Audio-Visual Situational Awareness for General Aviation Pilots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Spirkovska, Lilly; Lodha, Suresh K.; Clancy, Daniel (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Weather is one of the major causes of general aviation accidents. Researchers are addressing this problem from various perspectives including improving meteorological forecasting techniques, collecting additional weather data automatically via on-board sensors and "flight" modems, and improving weather data dissemination and presentation. We approach the problem from the improved presentation perspective and propose weather visualization and interaction methods tailored for general aviation pilots. Our system, Aviation Weather Data Visualization Environment (AWE), utilizes information visualization techniques, a direct manipulation graphical interface, and a speech-based interface to improve a pilot's situational awareness of relevant weather data. The system design is based on a user study and feedback from pilots.

When the display matters: A multifaceted perspective on 3D geovisualizations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Juřík, Vojtěch; Herman, Lukáš; Šašinka, Čeněk; Stachoň, Zdeněk; Chmelík, Jiří

2017-04-01

This study explores the influence of stereoscopic (real) 3D and monoscopic (pseudo) 3D visualization on the human ability to reckon altitude information in noninteractive and interactive 3D geovisualizations. A two phased experiment was carried out to compare the performance of two groups of participants, one of them using the real 3D and the other one pseudo 3D visualization of geographical data. A homogeneous group of 61 psychology students, inexperienced in processing of geographical data, were tested with respect to their efficiency at identifying altitudes of the displayed landscape. The first phase of the experiment was designed as non-interactive, where static 3D visual displayswere presented; the second phase was designed as interactive and the participants were allowed to explore the scene by adjusting the position of the virtual camera. The investigated variables included accuracy at altitude identification, time demands and the amount of the participant's motor activity performed during interaction with geovisualization. The interface was created using a Motion Capture system, Wii Remote Controller, widescreen projection and the passive Dolby 3D technology (for real 3D vision). The real 3D visual display was shown to significantly increase the accuracy of the landscape altitude identification in non-interactive tasks. As expected, in the interactive phase there were differences in accuracy flattened out between groups due to the possibility of interaction, with no other statistically significant differences in completion times or motor activity. The increased number of omitted objects in real 3D condition was further subjected to an exploratory analysis.

The relationship between visual working memory and attention: retention of precise colour information in the absence of effects on perceptual selection

PubMed Central

Hollingworth, Andrew; Hwang, Seongmin

2013-01-01

We examined the conditions under which a feature value in visual working memory (VWM) recruits visual attention to matching stimuli. Previous work has suggested that VWM supports two qualitatively different states of representation: an active state that interacts with perceptual selection and a passive (or accessory) state that does not. An alternative hypothesis is that VWM supports a single form of representation, with the precision of feature memory controlling whether or not the representation interacts with perceptual selection. The results of three experiments supported the dual-state hypothesis. We established conditions under which participants retained a relatively precise representation of a parcticular colour. If the colour was immediately task relevant, it reliably recruited attention to matching stimuli. However, if the colour was not immediately task relevant, it failed to interact with perceptual selection. Feature maintenance in VWM is not necessarily equivalent with feature-based attentional selection. PMID:24018723

Interactive Web-based Floodplain Simulation System for Realistic Experiments of Flooding and Flood Damage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.

2013-12-01

Recent developments in web technologies make it easy to manage and visualize large data sets with general public. Novel visualization techniques and dynamic user interfaces allow users to create realistic environments, and interact with data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. The floodplain simulation system is a web-based 3D interactive flood simulation environment to create real world flooding scenarios. The simulation systems provides a visually striking platform with realistic terrain information, and water simulation. Students can create and modify predefined scenarios, control environmental parameters, and evaluate flood mitigation techniques. The web-based simulation system provides an environment to children and adults learn about the flooding, flood damage, and effects of development and human activity in the floodplain. The system provides various scenarios customized to fit the age and education level of the users. This presentation provides an overview of the web-based flood simulation system, and demonstrates the capabilities of the system for various flooding and land use scenarios.

Coupled auralization and virtual video for immersive multimedia displays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henderson, Paul D.; Torres, Rendell R.; Shimizu, Yasushi; Radke, Richard; Lonsway, Brian

2003-04-01

The implementation of maximally-immersive interactive multimedia in exhibit spaces requires not only the presentation of realistic visual imagery but also the creation of a perceptually accurate aural experience. While conventional implementations treat audio and video problems as essentially independent, this research seeks to couple the visual sensory information with dynamic auralization in order to enhance perceptual accuracy. An implemented system has been developed for integrating accurate auralizations with virtual video techniques for both interactive presentation and multi-way communication. The current system utilizes a multi-channel loudspeaker array and real-time signal processing techniques for synthesizing the direct sound, early reflections, and reverberant field excited by a moving sound source whose path may be interactively defined in real-time or derived from coupled video tracking data. In this implementation, any virtual acoustic environment may be synthesized and presented in a perceptually-accurate fashion to many participants over a large listening and viewing area. Subject tests support the hypothesis that the cross-modal coupling of aural and visual displays significantly affects perceptual localization accuracy.

SCSODC: Integrating Ocean Data for Visualization Sharing and Application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, C.; Li, S.; Wang, D.; Xie, Q.

2014-02-01

The South China Sea Ocean Data Center (SCSODC) was founded in 2010 in order to improve collecting and managing of ocean data of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO). The mission of SCSODC is to ensure the long term scientific stewardship of ocean data, information and products - collected through research groups, monitoring stations and observation cruises - and to facilitate the efficient use and distribution to possible users. However, data sharing and applications were limited due to the characteristics of distribution and heterogeneity that made it difficult to integrate the data. To surmount those difficulties, the Data Sharing System has been developed by the SCSODC using the most appropriate information management and information technology. The Data Sharing System uses open standards and tools to promote the capability to integrate ocean data and to interact with other data portals or users and includes a full range of processes such as data discovery, evaluation and access combining C/S and B/S mode. It provides a visualized management interface for the data managers and a transparent and seamless data access and application environment for users. Users are allowed to access data using the client software and to access interactive visualization application interface via a web browser. The architecture, key technologies and functionality of the system are discussed briefly in this paper. It is shown that the system of SCSODC is able to implement web visualization sharing and seamless access to ocean data in a distributed and heterogeneous environment.

Touching proteins with virtual bare hands - Visualizing protein-drug complexes and their dynamics in self-made virtual reality using gaming hardware

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ratamero, Erick Martins; Bellini, Dom; Dowson, Christopher G.; Römer, Rudolf A.

2018-06-01

The ability to precisely visualize the atomic geometry of the interactions between a drug and its protein target in structural models is critical in predicting the correct modifications in previously identified inhibitors to create more effective next generation drugs. It is currently common practice among medicinal chemists while attempting the above to access the information contained in three-dimensional structures by using two-dimensional projections, which can preclude disclosure of useful features. A more accessible and intuitive visualization of the three-dimensional configuration of the atomic geometry in the models can be achieved through the implementation of immersive virtual reality (VR). While bespoke commercial VR suites are available, in this work, we present a freely available software pipeline for visualising protein structures through VR. New consumer hardware, such as the uc(HTC Vive) and the uc(Oculus Rift) utilized in this study, are available at reasonable prices. As an instructive example, we have combined VR visualization with fast algorithms for simulating intramolecular motions of protein flexibility, in an effort to further improve structure-led drug design by exposing molecular interactions that might be hidden in the less informative static models. This is a paradigmatic test case scenario for many similar applications in computer-aided molecular studies and design.

Touching proteins with virtual bare hands : Visualizing protein-drug complexes and their dynamics in self-made virtual reality using gaming hardware.

PubMed

Ratamero, Erick Martins; Bellini, Dom; Dowson, Christopher G; Römer, Rudolf A

2018-06-07

The ability to precisely visualize the atomic geometry of the interactions between a drug and its protein target in structural models is critical in predicting the correct modifications in previously identified inhibitors to create more effective next generation drugs. It is currently common practice among medicinal chemists while attempting the above to access the information contained in three-dimensional structures by using two-dimensional projections, which can preclude disclosure of useful features. A more accessible and intuitive visualization of the three-dimensional configuration of the atomic geometry in the models can be achieved through the implementation of immersive virtual reality (VR). While bespoke commercial VR suites are available, in this work, we present a freely available software pipeline for visualising protein structures through VR. New consumer hardware, such as the HTC VIVE and the OCULUS RIFT utilized in this study, are available at reasonable prices. As an instructive example, we have combined VR visualization with fast algorithms for simulating intramolecular motions of protein flexibility, in an effort to further improve structure-led drug design by exposing molecular interactions that might be hidden in the less informative static models. This is a paradigmatic test case scenario for many similar applications in computer-aided molecular studies and design.

Model of rhythmic ball bouncing using a visually controlled neural oscillator.

PubMed

Avrin, Guillaume; Siegler, Isabelle A; Makarov, Maria; Rodriguez-Ayerbe, Pedro

2017-10-01

The present paper investigates the sensory-driven modulations of central pattern generator dynamics that can be expected to reproduce human behavior during rhythmic hybrid tasks. We propose a theoretical model of human sensorimotor behavior able to account for the observed data from the ball-bouncing task. The novel control architecture is composed of a Matsuoka neural oscillator coupled with the environment through visual sensory feedback. The architecture's ability to reproduce human-like performance during the ball-bouncing task in the presence of perturbations is quantified by comparison of simulated and recorded trials. The results suggest that human visual control of the task is achieved online. The adaptive behavior is made possible by a parametric and state control of the limit cycle emerging from the interaction of the rhythmic pattern generator, the musculoskeletal system, and the environment. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The study demonstrates that a behavioral model based on a neural oscillator controlled by visual information is able to accurately reproduce human modulations in a motor action with respect to sensory information during the rhythmic ball-bouncing task. The model attractor dynamics emerging from the interaction between the neuromusculoskeletal system and the environment met task requirements, environmental constraints, and human behavioral choices without relying on movement planning and explicit internal models of the environment. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

Retinotopic patterns of background connectivity between V1 and fronto-parietal cortex are modulated by task demands

PubMed Central

Griffis, Joseph C.; Elkhetali, Abdurahman S.; Burge, Wesley K.; Chen, Richard H.; Visscher, Kristina M.

2015-01-01

Attention facilitates the processing of task-relevant visual information and suppresses interference from task-irrelevant information. Modulations of neural activity in visual cortex depend on attention, and likely result from signals originating in fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular regions of cortex. Here, we tested the hypothesis that attentional facilitation of visual processing is accomplished in part by changes in how brain networks involved in attentional control interact with sectors of V1 that represent different retinal eccentricities. We measured the strength of background connectivity between fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular regions with different eccentricity sectors in V1 using functional MRI data that were collected while participants performed tasks involving attention to either a centrally presented visual stimulus or a simultaneously presented auditory stimulus. We found that when the visual stimulus was attended, background connectivity between V1 and the left frontal eye fields (FEF), left intraparietal sulcus (IPS), and right IPS varied strongly across different eccentricity sectors in V1 so that foveal sectors were more strongly connected than peripheral sectors. This retinotopic gradient was weaker when the visual stimulus was ignored, indicating that it was driven by attentional effects. Greater task-driven differences between foveal and peripheral sectors in background connectivity to these regions were associated with better performance on the visual task and faster response times on correct trials. These findings are consistent with the notion that attention drives the configuration of task-specific functional pathways that enable the prioritized processing of task-relevant visual information, and show that the prioritization of visual information by attentional processes may be encoded in the retinotopic gradient of connectivty between V1 and fronto-parietal regions. PMID:26106320

Sequence Diversity Diagram for comparative analysis of multiple sequence alignments.

PubMed

Sakai, Ryo; Aerts, Jan

2014-01-01

The sequence logo is a graphical representation of a set of aligned sequences, commonly used to depict conservation of amino acid or nucleotide sequences. Although it effectively communicates the amount of information present at every position, this visual representation falls short when the domain task is to compare between two or more sets of aligned sequences. We present a new visual presentation called a Sequence Diversity Diagram and validate our design choices with a case study. Our software was developed using the open-source program called Processing. It loads multiple sequence alignment FASTA files and a configuration file, which can be modified as needed to change the visualization. The redesigned figure improves on the visual comparison of two or more sets, and it additionally encodes information on sequential position conservation. In our case study of the adenylate kinase lid domain, the Sequence Diversity Diagram reveals unexpected patterns and new insights, for example the identification of subgroups within the protein subfamily. Our future work will integrate this visual encoding into interactive visualization tools to support higher level data exploration tasks.

Neural Integration in Body Perception.

PubMed

Ramsey, Richard

2018-06-19

The perception of other people is instrumental in guiding social interactions. For example, the appearance of the human body cues a wide range of inferences regarding sex, age, health, and personality, as well as emotional state and intentions, which influence social behavior. To date, most neuroscience research on body perception has aimed to characterize the functional contribution of segregated patches of cortex in the ventral visual stream. In light of the growing prominence of network architectures in neuroscience, the current article reviews neuroimaging studies that measure functional integration between different brain regions during body perception. The review demonstrates that body perception is not restricted to processing in the ventral visual stream but instead reflects a functional alliance between the ventral visual stream and extended neural systems associated with action perception, executive functions, and theory of mind. Overall, these findings demonstrate how body percepts are constructed through interactions in distributed brain networks and underscore that functional segregation and integration should be considered together when formulating neurocognitive theories of body perception. Insight from such an updated model of body perception generalizes to inform the organizational structure of social perception and cognition more generally and also informs disorders of body image, such as anorexia nervosa, which may rely on atypical integration of body-related information.

The physiology and psychophysics of the color-form relationship: a review

PubMed Central

Moutoussis, Konstantinos

2015-01-01

The relationship between color and form has been a long standing issue in visual science. A picture of functional segregation and topographic clustering emerges from anatomical and electrophysiological studies in animals, as well as by brain imaging studies in human. However, one of the many roles of chromatic information is to support form perception, and in some cases it can do so in a way superior to achromatic (luminance) information. This occurs both at an early, contour-detection stage, as well as in late, higher stages involving spatial integration and the perception of global shapes. Pure chromatic contrast can also support several visual illusions related to form-perception. On the other hand, form seems a necessary prerequisite for the computation and assignment of color across space, and there are several respects in which the color of an object can be influenced by its form. Evidently, color and form are mutually dependent. Electrophysiological studies have revealed neurons in the visual brain able to signal contours determined by pure chromatic contrast, the spatial tuning of which is similar to that of neurons carrying luminance information. It seems that, especially at an early stage, form is processed by several, independent systems that interact with each other, each one having different tuning characteristics in color space. At later processing stages, mechanisms able to combine information coming from different sources emerge. A clear interaction between color and form is manifested by the fact that color-form contingencies can be observed in various perceptual phenomena such as adaptation aftereffects and illusions. Such an interaction suggests a possible early binding between these two attributes, something that has been verified by both electrophysiological and fMRI studies. PMID:26578989

The physiology and psychophysics of the color-form relationship: a review.

PubMed

Moutoussis, Konstantinos

2015-01-01

The relationship between color and form has been a long standing issue in visual science. A picture of functional segregation and topographic clustering emerges from anatomical and electrophysiological studies in animals, as well as by brain imaging studies in human. However, one of the many roles of chromatic information is to support form perception, and in some cases it can do so in a way superior to achromatic (luminance) information. This occurs both at an early, contour-detection stage, as well as in late, higher stages involving spatial integration and the perception of global shapes. Pure chromatic contrast can also support several visual illusions related to form-perception. On the other hand, form seems a necessary prerequisite for the computation and assignment of color across space, and there are several respects in which the color of an object can be influenced by its form. Evidently, color and form are mutually dependent. Electrophysiological studies have revealed neurons in the visual brain able to signal contours determined by pure chromatic contrast, the spatial tuning of which is similar to that of neurons carrying luminance information. It seems that, especially at an early stage, form is processed by several, independent systems that interact with each other, each one having different tuning characteristics in color space. At later processing stages, mechanisms able to combine information coming from different sources emerge. A clear interaction between color and form is manifested by the fact that color-form contingencies can be observed in various perceptual phenomena such as adaptation aftereffects and illusions. Such an interaction suggests a possible early binding between these two attributes, something that has been verified by both electrophysiological and fMRI studies.

Neural network based visualization of collaborations in a citizen science project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morais, Alessandra M. M.; Santos, Rafael D. C.; Raddick, M. Jordan

2014-05-01

Citizen science projects are those in which volunteers are asked to collaborate in scientific projects, usually by volunteering idle computer time for distributed data processing efforts or by actively labeling or classifying information - shapes of galaxies, whale sounds, historical records are all examples of citizen science projects in which users access a data collecting system to label or classify images and sounds. In order to be successful, a citizen science project must captivate users and keep them interested on the project and on the science behind it, increasing therefore the time the users spend collaborating with the project. Understanding behavior of citizen scientists and their interaction with the data collection systems may help increase the involvement of the users, categorize them accordingly to different parameters, facilitate their collaboration with the systems, design better user interfaces, and allow better planning and deployment of similar projects and systems. Users behavior can be actively monitored or derived from their interaction with the data collection systems. Records of the interactions can be analyzed using visualization techniques to identify patterns and outliers. In this paper we present some results on the visualization of more than 80 million interactions of almost 150 thousand users with the Galaxy Zoo I citizen science project. Visualization of the attributes extracted from their behaviors was done with a clustering neural network (the Self-Organizing Map) and a selection of icon- and pixel-based techniques. These techniques allows the visual identification of groups of similar behavior in several different ways.

Interactive metagenomic visualization in a Web browser.

PubMed

Ondov, Brian D; Bergman, Nicholas H; Phillippy, Adam M

2011-09-30

A critical output of metagenomic studies is the estimation of abundances of taxonomical or functional groups. The inherent uncertainty in assignments to these groups makes it important to consider both their hierarchical contexts and their prediction confidence. The current tools for visualizing metagenomic data, however, omit or distort quantitative hierarchical relationships and lack the facility for displaying secondary variables. Here we present Krona, a new visualization tool that allows intuitive exploration of relative abundances and confidences within the complex hierarchies of metagenomic classifications. Krona combines a variant of radial, space-filling displays with parametric coloring and interactive polar-coordinate zooming. The HTML5 and JavaScript implementation enables fully interactive charts that can be explored with any modern Web browser, without the need for installed software or plug-ins. This Web-based architecture also allows each chart to be an independent document, making them easy to share via e-mail or post to a standard Web server. To illustrate Krona's utility, we describe its application to various metagenomic data sets and its compatibility with popular metagenomic analysis tools. Krona is both a powerful metagenomic visualization tool and a demonstration of the potential of HTML5 for highly accessible bioinformatic visualizations. Its rich and interactive displays facilitate more informed interpretations of metagenomic analyses, while its implementation as a browser-based application makes it extremely portable and easily adopted into existing analysis packages. Both the Krona rendering code and conversion tools are freely available under a BSD open-source license, and available from: http://krona.sourceforge.net.

The Biomolecular Interaction Network Database and related tools 2005 update

PubMed Central

Alfarano, C.; Andrade, C. E.; Anthony, K.; Bahroos, N.; Bajec, M.; Bantoft, K.; Betel, D.; Bobechko, B.; Boutilier, K.; Burgess, E.; Buzadzija, K.; Cavero, R.; D'Abreo, C.; Donaldson, I.; Dorairajoo, D.; Dumontier, M. J.; Dumontier, M. R.; Earles, V.; Farrall, R.; Feldman, H.; Garderman, E.; Gong, Y.; Gonzaga, R.; Grytsan, V.; Gryz, E.; Gu, V.; Haldorsen, E.; Halupa, A.; Haw, R.; Hrvojic, A.; Hurrell, L.; Isserlin, R.; Jack, F.; Juma, F.; Khan, A.; Kon, T.; Konopinsky, S.; Le, V.; Lee, E.; Ling, S.; Magidin, M.; Moniakis, J.; Montojo, J.; Moore, S.; Muskat, B.; Ng, I.; Paraiso, J. P.; Parker, B.; Pintilie, G.; Pirone, R.; Salama, J. J.; Sgro, S.; Shan, T.; Shu, Y.; Siew, J.; Skinner, D.; Snyder, K.; Stasiuk, R.; Strumpf, D.; Tuekam, B.; Tao, S.; Wang, Z.; White, M.; Willis, R.; Wolting, C.; Wong, S.; Wrong, A.; Xin, C.; Yao, R.; Yates, B.; Zhang, S.; Zheng, K.; Pawson, T.; Ouellette, B. F. F.; Hogue, C. W. V.

2005-01-01

The Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND) (http://bind.ca) archives biomolecular interaction, reaction, complex and pathway information. Our aim is to curate the details about molecular interactions that arise from published experimental research and to provide this information, as well as tools to enable data analysis, freely to researchers worldwide. BIND data are curated into a comprehensive machine-readable archive of computable information and provides users with methods to discover interactions and molecular mechanisms. BIND has worked to develop new methods for visualization that amplify the underlying annotation of genes and proteins to facilitate the study of molecular interaction networks. BIND has maintained an open database policy since its inception in 1999. Data growth has proceeded at a tremendous rate, approaching over 100 000 records. New services provided include a new BIND Query and Submission interface, a Standard Object Access Protocol service and the Small Molecule Interaction Database (http://smid.blueprint.org) that allows users to determine probable small molecule binding sites of new sequences and examine conserved binding residues. PMID:15608229

Realistic tissue visualization using photoacoustic image

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cho, Seonghee; Managuli, Ravi; Jeon, Seungwan; Kim, Jeesu; Kim, Chulhong

2018-02-01

Visualization methods are very important in biomedical imaging. As a technology that understands life, biomedical imaging has the unique advantage of providing the most intuitive information in the image. This advantage of biomedical imaging can be greatly improved by choosing a special visualization method. This is more complicated in volumetric data. Volume data has the advantage of containing 3D spatial information. Unfortunately, the data itself cannot directly represent the potential value. Because images are always displayed in 2D space, visualization is the key and creates the real value of volume data. However, image processing of 3D data requires complicated algorithms for visualization and high computational burden. Therefore, specialized algorithms and computing optimization are important issues in volume data. Photoacoustic-imaging is a unique imaging modality that can visualize the optical properties of deep tissue. Because the color of the organism is mainly determined by its light absorbing component, photoacoustic data can provide color information of tissue, which is closer to real tissue color. In this research, we developed realistic tissue visualization using acoustic-resolution photoacoustic volume data. To achieve realistic visualization, we designed specialized color transfer function, which depends on the depth of the tissue from the skin. We used direct ray casting method and processed color during computing shader parameter. In the rendering results, we succeeded in obtaining similar texture results from photoacoustic data. The surface reflected rays were visualized in white, and the reflected color from the deep tissue was visualized red like skin tissue. We also implemented the CUDA algorithm in an OpenGL environment for real-time interactive imaging.

Real-time tracking of visually attended objects in virtual environments and its application to LOD.

PubMed

Lee, Sungkil; Kim, Gerard Jounghyun; Choi, Seungmoon

2009-01-01

This paper presents a real-time framework for computationally tracking objects visually attended by the user while navigating in interactive virtual environments. In addition to the conventional bottom-up (stimulus-driven) saliency map, the proposed framework uses top-down (goal-directed) contexts inferred from the user's spatial and temporal behaviors, and identifies the most plausibly attended objects among candidates in the object saliency map. The computational framework was implemented using GPU, exhibiting high computational performance adequate for interactive virtual environments. A user experiment was also conducted to evaluate the prediction accuracy of the tracking framework by comparing objects regarded as visually attended by the framework to actual human gaze collected with an eye tracker. The results indicated that the accuracy was in the level well supported by the theory of human cognition for visually identifying single and multiple attentive targets, especially owing to the addition of top-down contextual information. Finally, we demonstrate how the visual attention tracking framework can be applied to managing the level of details in virtual environments, without any hardware for head or eye tracking.

PaintOmics 3: a web resource for the pathway analysis and visualization of multi-omics data.

PubMed

Hernández-de-Diego, Rafael; Tarazona, Sonia; Martínez-Mira, Carlos; Balzano-Nogueira, Leandro; Furió-Tarí, Pedro; Pappas, Georgios J; Conesa, Ana

2018-05-25

The increasing availability of multi-omic platforms poses new challenges to data analysis. Joint visualization of multi-omics data is instrumental in better understanding interconnections across molecular layers and in fully utilizing the multi-omic resources available to make biological discoveries. We present here PaintOmics 3, a web-based resource for the integrated visualization of multiple omic data types onto KEGG pathway diagrams. PaintOmics 3 combines server-end capabilities for data analysis with the potential of modern web resources for data visualization, providing researchers with a powerful framework for interactive exploration of their multi-omics information. Unlike other visualization tools, PaintOmics 3 covers a comprehensive pathway analysis workflow, including automatic feature name/identifier conversion, multi-layered feature matching, pathway enrichment, network analysis, interactive heatmaps, trend charts, and more. It accepts a wide variety of omic types, including transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, as well as region-based approaches such as ATAC-seq or ChIP-seq data. The tool is freely available at www.paintomics.org.

PyContact: Rapid, Customizable, and Visual Analysis of Noncovalent Interactions in MD Simulations.

PubMed

Scheurer, Maximilian; Rodenkirch, Peter; Siggel, Marc; Bernardi, Rafael C; Schulten, Klaus; Tajkhorshid, Emad; Rudack, Till

2018-02-06

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have become ubiquitous in all areas of life sciences. The size and model complexity of MD simulations are rapidly growing along with increasing computing power and improved algorithms. This growth has led to the production of a large amount of simulation data that need to be filtered for relevant information to address specific biomedical and biochemical questions. One of the most relevant molecular properties that can be investigated by all-atom MD simulations is the time-dependent evolution of the complex noncovalent interaction networks governing such fundamental aspects as molecular recognition, binding strength, and mechanical and structural stability. Extracting, evaluating, and visualizing noncovalent interactions is a key task in the daily work of structural biologists. We have developed PyContact, an easy-to-use, highly flexible, and intuitive graphical user interface-based application, designed to provide a toolkit to investigate biomolecular interactions in MD trajectories. PyContact is designed to facilitate this task by enabling identification of relevant noncovalent interactions in a comprehensible manner. The implementation of PyContact as a standalone application enables rapid analysis and data visualization without any additional programming requirements, and also preserves full in-program customization and extension capabilities for advanced users. The statistical analysis representation is interactively combined with full mapping of the results on the molecular system through the synergistic connection between PyContact and VMD. We showcase the capabilities and scientific significance of PyContact by analyzing and visualizing in great detail the noncovalent interactions underlying the ion permeation pathway of the human P2X 3 receptor. As a second application, we examine the protein-protein interaction network of the mechanically ultrastable cohesin-dockering complex. Copyright © 2017 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The impact of interference on short-term memory for visual orientation.

PubMed

Rademaker, Rosanne L; Bloem, Ilona M; De Weerd, Peter; Sack, Alexander T

2015-12-01

Visual short-term memory serves as an efficient buffer for maintaining no longer directly accessible information. How robust are visual memories against interference? Memory for simple visual features has proven vulnerable to distractors containing conflicting information along the relevant stimulus dimension, leading to the idea that interacting feature-specific channels at an early stage of visual processing support memory for simple visual features. Here we showed that memory for a single randomly orientated grating was susceptible to interference from a to-be-ignored distractor grating presented midway through a 3-s delay period. Memory for the initially presented orientation became noisier when it differed from the distractor orientation, and response distributions were shifted toward the distractor orientation (by ∼3°). Interestingly, when the distractor was rendered task-relevant by making it a second memory target, memory for both retained orientations showed reduced reliability as a function of increased orientation differences between them. However, the degree to which responses to the first grating shifted toward the orientation of the task-relevant second grating was much reduced. Finally, using a dichoptic display, we demonstrated that these systematic biases caused by a consciously perceived distractor disappeared once the distractor was presented outside of participants' awareness. Together, our results show that visual short-term memory for orientation can be systematically biased by interfering information that is consciously perceived. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Head-mounted eye tracking: a new method to describe infant looking.

PubMed

Franchak, John M; Kretch, Kari S; Soska, Kasey C; Adolph, Karen E

2011-01-01

Despite hundreds of studies describing infants' visual exploration of experimental stimuli, researchers know little about where infants look during everyday interactions. The current study describes the first method for studying visual behavior during natural interactions in mobile infants. Six 14-month-old infants wore a head-mounted eye-tracker that recorded gaze during free play with mothers. Results revealed that infants' visual exploration is opportunistic and depends on the availability of information and the constraints of infants' own bodies. Looks to mothers' faces were rare following infant-directed utterances but more likely if mothers were sitting at infants' eye level. Gaze toward the destination of infants' hand movements was common during manual actions and crawling, but looks toward obstacles during leg movements were less frequent. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Temporal dynamics of encoding, storage and reallocation of visual working memory

PubMed Central

Bays, Paul M; Gorgoraptis, Nikos; Wee, Natalie; Marshall, Louise; Husain, Masud

2012-01-01

The process of encoding a visual scene into working memory has previously been studied using binary measures of recall. Here we examine the temporal evolution of memory resolution, based on observers’ ability to reproduce the orientations of objects presented in brief, masked displays. Recall precision was accurately described by the interaction of two independent constraints: an encoding limit that determines the maximum rate at which information can be transferred into memory, and a separate storage limit that determines the maximum fidelity with which information can be maintained. Recall variability decreased incrementally with time, consistent with a parallel encoding process in which visual information from multiple objects accumulates simultaneously in working memory. No evidence was observed for a limit on the number of items stored. Cueing one display item with a brief flash led to rapid development of a recall advantage for that item. This advantage was short-lived if the cue was simply a salient visual event, but was maintained if it indicated an object of particular relevance to the task. These cueing effects were observed even for items that had already been encoded into memory, indicating that limited memory resources can be rapidly reallocated to prioritize salient or goal-relevant information. PMID:21911739

Temporal dynamics of encoding, storage, and reallocation of visual working memory.

PubMed

Bays, Paul M; Gorgoraptis, Nikos; Wee, Natalie; Marshall, Louise; Husain, Masud

2011-09-12

The process of encoding a visual scene into working memory has previously been studied using binary measures of recall. Here, we examine the temporal evolution of memory resolution, based on observers' ability to reproduce the orientations of objects presented in brief, masked displays. Recall precision was accurately described by the interaction of two independent constraints: an encoding limit that determines the maximum rate at which information can be transferred into memory and a separate storage limit that determines the maximum fidelity with which information can be maintained. Recall variability decreased incrementally with time, consistent with a parallel encoding process in which visual information from multiple objects accumulates simultaneously in working memory. No evidence was observed for a limit on the number of items stored. Cuing one display item with a brief flash led to rapid development of a recall advantage for that item. This advantage was short-lived if the cue was simply a salient visual event but was maintained if it indicated an object of particular relevance to the task. These cuing effects were observed even for items that had already been encoded into memory, indicating that limited memory resources can be rapidly reallocated to prioritize salient or goal-relevant information.

Interactive visual comparison of multimedia data through type-specific views

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Burtner, Edwin R.; Bohn, Shawn J.; Payne, Deborah A.

2013-02-05

Analysts who work with collections of multimedia to perform information foraging understand how difficult it is to connect information across diverse sets of mixed media. The wealth of information from blogs, social media, and news sites often can provide actionable intelligence; however, many of the tools used on these sources of content are not capable of multimedia analysis because they only analyze a single media type. As such, analysts are taxed to keep a mental model of the relationships among each of the media types when generating the broader content picture. To address this need, we have developed Canopy, amore » novel visual analytic tool for analyzing multimedia. Canopy provides insight into the multimedia data relationships by exploiting the linkages found in text, images, and video co-occurring in the same document and across the collection. Canopy connects derived and explicit linkages and relationships through multiple connected visualizations to aid analysts in quickly summarizing, searching, and browsing collected information to explore relationships and align content. In this paper, we will discuss the features and capabilities of the Canopy system and walk through a scenario illustrating how this system might be used in an operational environment. Keywords: Multimedia (Image/Video/Music) Visualization.« less

Executive and Perceptual Distraction in Visual Working Memory

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

The contents of visual working memory are likely to reflect the influence of both executive control resources and information present in the environment. We investigated whether executive attention is critical in the ability to exclude unwanted stimuli by introducing concurrent potentially distracting irrelevant items to a visual working memory paradigm, and manipulating executive load using simple or more demanding secondary verbal tasks. Across 7 experiments varying in presentation format, timing, stimulus set, and distractor number, we observed clear disruptive effects of executive load and visual distraction, but relatively minimal evidence supporting an interactive relationship between these factors. These findings are in line with recent evidence using delay-based interference, and suggest that different forms of attentional selection operate relatively independently in visual working memory. PMID:28414499

Viewpoint Dependent Imaging: An Interactive Stereoscopic Display

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fisher, Scott

1983-04-01

Design and implementation of a viewpoint Dependent imaging system is described. The resultant display is an interactive, lifesize, stereoscopic image. that becomes a window into a three dimensional visual environment. As the user physically changes his viewpoint of the represented data in relation to the display surface, the image is continuously updated. The changing viewpoints are retrieved from a comprehensive, stereoscopic image array stored on computer controlled, optical videodisc and fluidly presented. in coordination with the viewer's, movements as detected by a body-tracking device. This imaging system is an attempt to more closely represent an observers interactive perceptual experience of the visual world by presenting sensory information cues not offered by traditional media technologies: binocular parallax, motion parallax, and motion perspective. Unlike holographic imaging, this display requires, relatively low bandwidth.

An interactive web-based system using cloud for large-scale visual analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaseb, Ahmed S.; Berry, Everett; Rozolis, Erik; McNulty, Kyle; Bontrager, Seth; Koh, Youngsol; Lu, Yung-Hsiang; Delp, Edward J.

2015-03-01

Network cameras have been growing rapidly in recent years. Thousands of public network cameras provide tremendous amount of visual information about the environment. There is a need to analyze this valuable information for a better understanding of the world around us. This paper presents an interactive web-based system that enables users to execute image analysis and computer vision techniques on a large scale to analyze the data from more than 65,000 worldwide cameras. This paper focuses on how to use both the system's website and Application Programming Interface (API). Given a computer program that analyzes a single frame, the user needs to make only slight changes to the existing program and choose the cameras to analyze. The system handles the heterogeneity of the geographically distributed cameras, e.g. different brands, resolutions. The system allocates and manages Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure cloud resources to meet the analysis requirements.

Formation of visual memories controlled by gamma power phase-locked to alpha oscillations.

PubMed

Park, Hyojin; Lee, Dong Soo; Kang, Eunjoo; Kang, Hyejin; Hahm, Jarang; Kim, June Sic; Chung, Chun Kee; Jiang, Haiteng; Gross, Joachim; Jensen, Ole

2016-06-16

Neuronal oscillations provide a window for understanding the brain dynamics that organize the flow of information from sensory to memory areas. While it has been suggested that gamma power reflects feedforward processing and alpha oscillations feedback control, it remains unknown how these oscillations dynamically interact. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) data was acquired from healthy subjects who were cued to either remember or not remember presented pictures. Our analysis revealed that in anticipation of a picture to be remembered, alpha power decreased while the cross-frequency coupling between gamma power and alpha phase increased. A measure of directionality between alpha phase and gamma power predicted individual ability to encode memory: stronger control of alpha phase over gamma power was associated with better memory. These findings demonstrate that encoding of visual information is reflected by a state determined by the interaction between alpha and gamma activity.

Interactive Visualization of Computational Fluid Dynamics using Mosaic

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clucas, Jean; Watson, Velvin; Chancellor, Marisa K. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

The Web provides new Methods for accessing Information world-wide, but the current text-and-pictures approach neither utilizes all the Web's possibilities not provides for its limitations. While the inclusion of pictures and animations in a paper communicates more effectively than text alone, It Is essentially an extension of the concept of "publication." Also, as use of the Web increases putting images and animations online will quickly load even the "Information Superhighway." We need to find forms of communication that take advantage of the special nature of the Web. This paper presents one approach: the use of the Internet and the Mosaic interface for data sharing and collaborative analysis. We will describe (and In the presentation, demonstrate) our approach: using FAST (Flow Analysis Software Toolkit), a scientific visualization package, as a data viewer and interactive tool called from MOSAIC. Our intent is to stimulate the development of other tools that utilize the unique nature of electronic communication.

Formation of visual memories controlled by gamma power phase-locked to alpha oscillations

PubMed Central

Park, Hyojin; Lee, Dong Soo; Kang, Eunjoo; Kang, Hyejin; Hahm, Jarang; Kim, June Sic; Chung, Chun Kee; Jiang, Haiteng; Gross, Joachim; Jensen, Ole

2016-01-01

Neuronal oscillations provide a window for understanding the brain dynamics that organize the flow of information from sensory to memory areas. While it has been suggested that gamma power reflects feedforward processing and alpha oscillations feedback control, it remains unknown how these oscillations dynamically interact. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) data was acquired from healthy subjects who were cued to either remember or not remember presented pictures. Our analysis revealed that in anticipation of a picture to be remembered, alpha power decreased while the cross-frequency coupling between gamma power and alpha phase increased. A measure of directionality between alpha phase and gamma power predicted individual ability to encode memory: stronger control of alpha phase over gamma power was associated with better memory. These findings demonstrate that encoding of visual information is reflected by a state determined by the interaction between alpha and gamma activity. PMID:27306959

Formation of visual memories controlled by gamma power phase-locked to alpha oscillations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Hyojin; Lee, Dong Soo; Kang, Eunjoo; Kang, Hyejin; Hahm, Jarang; Kim, June Sic; Chung, Chun Kee; Jiang, Haiteng; Gross, Joachim; Jensen, Ole

2016-06-01

Neuronal oscillations provide a window for understanding the brain dynamics that organize the flow of information from sensory to memory areas. While it has been suggested that gamma power reflects feedforward processing and alpha oscillations feedback control, it remains unknown how these oscillations dynamically interact. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) data was acquired from healthy subjects who were cued to either remember or not remember presented pictures. Our analysis revealed that in anticipation of a picture to be remembered, alpha power decreased while the cross-frequency coupling between gamma power and alpha phase increased. A measure of directionality between alpha phase and gamma power predicted individual ability to encode memory: stronger control of alpha phase over gamma power was associated with better memory. These findings demonstrate that encoding of visual information is reflected by a state determined by the interaction between alpha and gamma activity.

Visual Attention Model Based on Statistical Properties of Neuron Responses

PubMed Central

Duan, Haibin; Wang, Xiaohua

2015-01-01

Visual attention is a mechanism of the visual system that can select relevant objects from a specific scene. Interactions among neurons in multiple cortical areas are considered to be involved in attentional allocation. However, the characteristics of the encoded features and neuron responses in those attention related cortices are indefinite. Therefore, further investigations carried out in this study aim at demonstrating that unusual regions arousing more attention generally cause particular neuron responses. We suppose that visual saliency is obtained on the basis of neuron responses to contexts in natural scenes. A bottom-up visual attention model is proposed based on the self-information of neuron responses to test and verify the hypothesis. Four different color spaces are adopted and a novel entropy-based combination scheme is designed to make full use of color information. Valuable regions are highlighted while redundant backgrounds are suppressed in the saliency maps obtained by the proposed model. Comparative results reveal that the proposed model outperforms several state-of-the-art models. This study provides insights into the neuron responses based saliency detection and may underlie the neural mechanism of early visual cortices for bottom-up visual attention. PMID:25747859

Visual analytics in cheminformatics: user-supervised descriptor selection for QSAR methods.

PubMed

Martínez, María Jimena; Ponzoni, Ignacio; Díaz, Mónica F; Vazquez, Gustavo E; Soto, Axel J

2015-01-01

The design of QSAR/QSPR models is a challenging problem, where the selection of the most relevant descriptors constitutes a key step of the process. Several feature selection methods that address this step are concentrated on statistical associations among descriptors and target properties, whereas the chemical knowledge is left out of the analysis. For this reason, the interpretability and generality of the QSAR/QSPR models obtained by these feature selection methods are drastically affected. Therefore, an approach for integrating domain expert's knowledge in the selection process is needed for increase the confidence in the final set of descriptors. In this paper a software tool, which we named Visual and Interactive DEscriptor ANalysis (VIDEAN), that combines statistical methods with interactive visualizations for choosing a set of descriptors for predicting a target property is proposed. Domain expertise can be added to the feature selection process by means of an interactive visual exploration of data, and aided by statistical tools and metrics based on information theory. Coordinated visual representations are presented for capturing different relationships and interactions among descriptors, target properties and candidate subsets of descriptors. The competencies of the proposed software were assessed through different scenarios. These scenarios reveal how an expert can use this tool to choose one subset of descriptors from a group of candidate subsets or how to modify existing descriptor subsets and even incorporate new descriptors according to his or her own knowledge of the target property. The reported experiences showed the suitability of our software for selecting sets of descriptors with low cardinality, high interpretability, low redundancy and high statistical performance in a visual exploratory way. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the resulting tool allows the integration of a chemist's expertise in the descriptor selection process with a low cognitive effort in contrast with the alternative of using an ad-hoc manual analysis of the selected descriptors. Graphical abstractVIDEAN allows the visual analysis of candidate subsets of descriptors for QSAR/QSPR. In the two panels on the top, users can interactively explore numerical correlations as well as co-occurrences in the candidate subsets through two interactive graphs.

Audio-visual onset differences are used to determine syllable identity for ambiguous audio-visual stimulus pairs

PubMed Central

ten Oever, Sanne; Sack, Alexander T.; Wheat, Katherine L.; Bien, Nina; van Atteveldt, Nienke

2013-01-01

Content and temporal cues have been shown to interact during audio-visual (AV) speech identification. Typically, the most reliable unimodal cue is used more strongly to identify specific speech features; however, visual cues are only used if the AV stimuli are presented within a certain temporal window of integration (TWI). This suggests that temporal cues denote whether unimodal stimuli belong together, that is, whether they should be integrated. It is not known whether temporal cues also provide information about the identity of a syllable. Since spoken syllables have naturally varying AV onset asynchronies, we hypothesize that for suboptimal AV cues presented within the TWI, information about the natural AV onset differences can aid in speech identification. To test this, we presented low-intensity auditory syllables concurrently with visual speech signals, and varied the stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) of the AV pair, while participants were instructed to identify the auditory syllables. We revealed that specific speech features (e.g., voicing) were identified by relying primarily on one modality (e.g., auditory). Additionally, we showed a wide window in which visual information influenced auditory perception, that seemed even wider for congruent stimulus pairs. Finally, we found a specific response pattern across the SOA range for syllables that were not reliably identified by the unimodal cues, which we explained as the result of the use of natural onset differences between AV speech signals. This indicates that temporal cues not only provide information about the temporal integration of AV stimuli, but additionally convey information about the identity of AV pairs. These results provide a detailed behavioral basis for further neuro-imaging and stimulation studies to unravel the neurofunctional mechanisms of the audio-visual-temporal interplay within speech perception. PMID:23805110

Audio-visual onset differences are used to determine syllable identity for ambiguous audio-visual stimulus pairs.

PubMed

Ten Oever, Sanne; Sack, Alexander T; Wheat, Katherine L; Bien, Nina; van Atteveldt, Nienke

2013-01-01

Content and temporal cues have been shown to interact during audio-visual (AV) speech identification. Typically, the most reliable unimodal cue is used more strongly to identify specific speech features; however, visual cues are only used if the AV stimuli are presented within a certain temporal window of integration (TWI). This suggests that temporal cues denote whether unimodal stimuli belong together, that is, whether they should be integrated. It is not known whether temporal cues also provide information about the identity of a syllable. Since spoken syllables have naturally varying AV onset asynchronies, we hypothesize that for suboptimal AV cues presented within the TWI, information about the natural AV onset differences can aid in speech identification. To test this, we presented low-intensity auditory syllables concurrently with visual speech signals, and varied the stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) of the AV pair, while participants were instructed to identify the auditory syllables. We revealed that specific speech features (e.g., voicing) were identified by relying primarily on one modality (e.g., auditory). Additionally, we showed a wide window in which visual information influenced auditory perception, that seemed even wider for congruent stimulus pairs. Finally, we found a specific response pattern across the SOA range for syllables that were not reliably identified by the unimodal cues, which we explained as the result of the use of natural onset differences between AV speech signals. This indicates that temporal cues not only provide information about the temporal integration of AV stimuli, but additionally convey information about the identity of AV pairs. These results provide a detailed behavioral basis for further neuro-imaging and stimulation studies to unravel the neurofunctional mechanisms of the audio-visual-temporal interplay within speech perception.

Multisensory effects on somatosensation: a trimodal visuo-vestibular-tactile interaction

PubMed Central

Kaliuzhna, Mariia; Ferrè, Elisa Raffaella; Herbelin, Bruno; Blanke, Olaf; Haggard, Patrick

2016-01-01

Vestibular information about self-motion is combined with other sensory signals. Previous research described both visuo-vestibular and vestibular-tactile bilateral interactions, but the simultaneous interaction between all three sensory modalities has not been explored. Here we exploit a previously reported visuo-vestibular integration to investigate multisensory effects on tactile sensitivity in humans. Tactile sensitivity was measured during passive whole body rotations alone or in conjunction with optic flow, creating either purely vestibular or visuo-vestibular sensations of self-motion. Our results demonstrate that tactile sensitivity is modulated by perceived self-motion, as provided by a combined visuo-vestibular percept, and not by the visual and vestibular cues independently. We propose a hierarchical multisensory interaction that underpins somatosensory modulation: visual and vestibular cues are first combined to produce a multisensory self-motion percept. Somatosensory processing is then enhanced according to the degree of perceived self-motion. PMID:27198907

Anchoring in Numeric Judgments of Visual Stimuli

PubMed Central

Langeborg, Linda; Eriksson, Mårten

2016-01-01

This article investigates effects of anchoring in age estimation and estimation of quantities, two tasks which to different extents are based on visual stimuli. The results are compared to anchoring in answers to classic general knowledge questions that rely on semantic knowledge. Cognitive load was manipulated to explore possible differences between domains. Effects of source credibility, manipulated by differing instructions regarding the selection of anchor values (no information regarding anchor selection, information that the anchors are randomly generated or information that the anchors are answers from an expert) on anchoring were also investigated. Effects of anchoring were large for all types of judgments but were not affected by cognitive load or by source credibility in either one of the researched domains. A main effect of cognitive load on quantity estimations and main effects of source credibility in the two visually based domains indicate that the manipulations were efficient. Implications for theoretical explanations of anchoring are discussed. In particular, because anchoring did not interact with cognitive load, the results imply that the process behind anchoring in visual tasks is predominantly automatic and unconscious. PMID:26941684

Efficient transmission of compressed data for remote volume visualization.

PubMed

Krishnan, Karthik; Marcellin, Michael W; Bilgin, Ali; Nadar, Mariappan S

2006-09-01

One of the goals of telemedicine is to enable remote visualization and browsing of medical volumes. There is a need to employ scalable compression schemes and efficient client-server models to obtain interactivity and an enhanced viewing experience. First, we present a scheme that uses JPEG2000 and JPIP (JPEG2000 Interactive Protocol) to transmit data in a multi-resolution and progressive fashion. The server exploits the spatial locality offered by the wavelet transform and packet indexing information to transmit, in so far as possible, compressed volume data relevant to the clients query. Once the client identifies its volume of interest (VOI), the volume is refined progressively within the VOI from an initial lossy to a final lossless representation. Contextual background information can also be made available having quality fading away from the VOI. Second, we present a prioritization that enables the client to progressively visualize scene content from a compressed file. In our specific example, the client is able to make requests to progressively receive data corresponding to any tissue type. The server is now capable of reordering the same compressed data file on the fly to serve data packets prioritized as per the client's request. Lastly, we describe the effect of compression parameters on compression ratio, decoding times and interactivity. We also present suggestions for optimizing JPEG2000 for remote volume visualization and volume browsing applications. The resulting system is ideally suited for client-server applications with the server maintaining the compressed volume data, to be browsed by a client with a low bandwidth constraint.

Telescopic multi-resolution augmented reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jenkins, Jeffrey; Frenchi, Christopher; Szu, Harold

2014-05-01

To ensure a self-consistent scaling approximation, the underlying microscopic fluctuation components can naturally influence macroscopic means, which may give rise to emergent observable phenomena. In this paper, we describe a consistent macroscopic (cm-scale), mesoscopic (micron-scale), and microscopic (nano-scale) approach to introduce Telescopic Multi-Resolution (TMR) into current Augmented Reality (AR) visualization technology. We propose to couple TMR-AR by introducing an energy-matter interaction engine framework that is based on known Physics, Biology, Chemistry principles. An immediate payoff of TMR-AR is a self-consistent approximation of the interaction between microscopic observables and their direct effect on the macroscopic system that is driven by real-world measurements. Such an interdisciplinary approach enables us to achieve more than multiple scale, telescopic visualization of real and virtual information but also conducting thought experiments through AR. As a result of the consistency, this framework allows us to explore a large dimensionality parameter space of measured and unmeasured regions. Towards this direction, we explore how to build learnable libraries of biological, physical, and chemical mechanisms. Fusing analytical sensors with TMR-AR libraries provides a robust framework to optimize testing and evaluation through data-driven or virtual synthetic simulations. Visualizing mechanisms of interactions requires identification of observable image features that can indicate the presence of information in multiple spatial and temporal scales of analog data. The AR methodology was originally developed to enhance pilot-training as well as `make believe' entertainment industries in a user-friendly digital environment We believe TMR-AR can someday help us conduct thought experiments scientifically, to be pedagogically visualized in a zoom-in-and-out, consistent, multi-scale approximations.

On the role of crossmodal prediction in audiovisual emotion perception.

PubMed

Jessen, Sarah; Kotz, Sonja A

2013-01-01

Humans rely on multiple sensory modalities to determine the emotional state of others. In fact, such multisensory perception may be one of the mechanisms explaining the ease and efficiency by which others' emotions are recognized. But how and when exactly do the different modalities interact? One aspect in multisensory perception that has received increasing interest in recent years is the concept of cross-modal prediction. In emotion perception, as in most other settings, visual information precedes the auditory information. Thereby, leading in visual information can facilitate subsequent auditory processing. While this mechanism has often been described in audiovisual speech perception, so far it has not been addressed in audiovisual emotion perception. Based on the current state of the art in (a) cross-modal prediction and (b) multisensory emotion perception research, we propose that it is essential to consider the former in order to fully understand the latter. Focusing on electroencephalographic (EEG) and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) studies, we provide a brief overview of the current research in both fields. In discussing these findings, we suggest that emotional visual information may allow more reliable predicting of auditory information compared to non-emotional visual information. In support of this hypothesis, we present a re-analysis of a previous data set that shows an inverse correlation between the N1 EEG response and the duration of visual emotional, but not non-emotional information. If the assumption that emotional content allows more reliable predicting can be corroborated in future studies, cross-modal prediction is a crucial factor in our understanding of multisensory emotion perception.

Visualization tool for human-machine interface designers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prevost, Michael P.; Banda, Carolyn P.

1991-06-01

As modern human-machine systems continue to grow in capabilities and complexity, system operators are faced with integrating and managing increased quantities of information. Since many information components are highly related to each other, optimizing the spatial and temporal aspects of presenting information to the operator has become a formidable task for the human-machine interface (HMI) designer. The authors describe a tool in an early stage of development, the Information Source Layout Editor (ISLE). This tool is to be used for information presentation design and analysis; it uses human factors guidelines to assist the HMI designer in the spatial layout of the information required by machine operators to perform their tasks effectively. These human factors guidelines address such areas as the functional and physical relatedness of information sources. By representing these relationships with metaphors such as spring tension, attractors, and repellers, the tool can help designers visualize the complex constraint space and interacting effects of moving displays to various alternate locations. The tool contains techniques for visualizing the relative 'goodness' of a configuration, as well as mechanisms such as optimization vectors to provide guidance toward a more optimal design. Also available is a rule-based design checker to determine compliance with selected human factors guidelines.

Communicating Numerical Risk: Human Factors That Aid Understanding in Health Care

PubMed Central

Brust-Renck, Priscila G.; Royer, Caisa E.; Reyna, Valerie F.

2014-01-01

In this chapter, we review evidence from the human factors literature that verbal and visual formats can help increase the understanding of numerical risk information in health care. These visual representations of risk are grounded in empirically supported theory. As background, we first review research showing that people often have difficulty understanding numerical risks and benefits in health information. In particular, we discuss how understanding the meanings of numbers results in healthier decisions. Then, we discuss the processes that determine how communication of numerical risks can enhance (or degrade) health judgments and decisions. Specifically, we examine two different approaches to risk communication: a traditional approach and fuzzy-trace theory. Applying research on the complications of understanding and communicating risks, we then highlight how different visual representations are best suited to communicating different risk messages (i.e., their gist). In particular, we review verbal and visual messages that highlight gist representations that can better communicate health information and improve informed decision making. This discussion is informed by human factors theories and methods, which involve the study of how to maximize the interaction between humans and the tools they use. Finally, we present implications and recommendations for future research on human factors in health care. PMID:24999307

Developmental Increase in Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing in a Phonological Task: An Effective Connectivity, fMRI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bitan, Tali; Cheon, Jimmy; Lu, Dong; Burman, Douglas D.; Booth, James R.

2009-01-01

We examined age-related changes in the interactions among brain regions in children performing rhyming judgments on visually presented words. The difficulty of the task was manipulated by including a conflict between task-relevant (phonological) information and task-irrelevant (orthographic) information. The conflicting conditions included pairs…

Linking Audio and Visual Information while Navigating in a Virtual Reality Kiosk Display

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sullivan, Briana; Ware, Colin; Plumlee, Matthew

2006-01-01

3D interactive virtual reality museum exhibits should be easy to use, entertaining, and informative. If the interface is intuitive, it will allow the user more time to learn the educational content of the exhibit. This research deals with interface issues concerning activating audio descriptions of images in such exhibits while the user is…

Learning in the Middle School Earth Science Classroom: Students Conceptually Integrate New Knowledge Using Intelligent Laserdiscs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freitag, Patricia K.; Abegg, Gerald L.

A study was designed to describe how middle school students select, link, and determine relationships between textual and visual information. Fourteen authoring groups were formed from both eighth-grade earth science classes of one veteran teacher in one school. Each group was challenged to produce an informative interactive laservideodisc project…

Designing a Structured and Interactive Learning Environment Based on GIS for Secondary Geography Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Suxia; Zhu, Xuan

2008-01-01

Geographic information systems (GIS) are computer-based tools for geographic data analysis and spatial visualization. They have become one of the information and communications technologies for education at all levels. This article reviews the current status of GIS in schools, analyzes the requirements of a GIS-based learning environment from…

Stepping Into Science Data: Data Visualization in Virtual Reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Skolnik, S.

2017-12-01

Have you ever seen people get really excited about science data? Navteca, along with the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), within the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate have been exploring virtual reality (VR) technology for the next generation of Earth science technology information systems. One of their first joint experiments was visualizing climate data from the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) in VR, and the resulting visualizations greatly excited the scientific community. This presentation will share the value of VR for science, such as the capability of permitting the observer to interact with data rendered in real-time, make selections, and view volumetric data in an innovative way. Using interactive VR hardware (headset and controllers), the viewer steps into the data visualizations, physically moving through three-dimensional structures that are traditionally displayed as layers or slices, such as cloud and storm systems from NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM). Results from displaying this precipitation and cloud data show that there is interesting potential for scientific visualization, 3D/4D visualizations, and inter-disciplinary studies using VR. Additionally, VR visualizations can be leveraged as 360 content for scientific communication and outreach and VR can be used as a tool to engage policy and decision makers, as well as the public.

A new metaphor for projection-based visual analysis and data exploration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schreck, Tobias; Panse, Christian

2007-01-01

In many important application domains such as Business and Finance, Process Monitoring, and Security, huge and quickly increasing volumes of complex data are collected. Strong efforts are underway developing automatic and interactive analysis tools for mining useful information from these data repositories. Many data analysis algorithms require an appropriate definition of similarity (or distance) between data instances to allow meaningful clustering, classification, and retrieval, among other analysis tasks. Projection-based data visualization is highly interesting (a) for visual discrimination analysis of a data set within a given similarity definition, and (b) for comparative analysis of similarity characteristics of a given data set represented by different similarity definitions. We introduce an intuitive and effective novel approach for projection-based similarity visualization for interactive discrimination analysis, data exploration, and visual evaluation of metric space effectiveness. The approach is based on the convex hull metaphor for visually aggregating sets of points in projected space, and it can be used with a variety of different projection techniques. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by application on two well-known data sets. Statistical evidence supporting the validity of the hull metaphor is presented. We advocate the hull-based approach over the standard symbol-based approach to projection visualization, as it allows a more effective perception of similarity relationships and class distribution characteristics.

Building Stories about Sea Level Rise through Interactive Visualizations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stephens, S. H.; DeLorme, D. E.; Hagen, S. C.

2013-12-01

Digital media provide storytellers with dynamic new tools for communicating about scientific issues via interactive narrative visualizations. While traditional storytelling uses plot, characterization, and point of view to engage audiences with underlying themes and messages, interactive visualizations can be described as 'narrative builders' that promote insight through the process of discovery (Dove, G. & Jones, S. 2012, Proc. IHCI 2012). Narrative visualizations are used in online journalism to tell complex stories that allow readers to select aspects of datasets to explore and construct alternative interpretations of information (Segel, E. & Heer, J. 2010, IEEE Trans. Vis. Comp. Graph.16, 1139), thus enabling them to participate in the story-building process. Nevertheless, narrative visualizations also incorporate author-selected narrative elements that help guide and constrain the overall themes and messaging of the visualization (Hullman, J. & Diakopoulos, N. 2011, IEEE Trans. Vis. Comp. Graph. 17, 2231). One specific type of interactive narrative visualization that is used for science communication is the sea level rise (SLR) viewer. SLR viewers generally consist of a base map, upon which projections of sea level rise scenarios can be layered, and various controls for changing the viewpoint and scenario parameters. They are used to communicate the results of scientific modeling and help readers visualize the potential impacts of SLR on the coastal zone. Readers can use SLR viewers to construct personal narratives of the effects of SLR under different scenarios in locations that are important to them, thus extending the potential reach and impact of scientific research. With careful selection of narrative elements that guide reader interpretation, the communicative aspects of these visualizations may be made more effective. This presentation reports the results of a content analysis of a subset of existing SLR viewers selected in order to comprehensively identify and characterize the narrative elements that contribute to this storytelling medium. The results describe four layers of narrative elements in these viewers: data, visual representations, annotations, and interactivity; and explain the ways in which these elements are used to communicate about SLR. Most existing SLR viewers have been designed with attention to technical usability; however, careful design of narrative elements could increase their overall effectiveness as story-building tools. The analysis concludes with recommendations for narrative elements that should be considered when designing new SLR viewers, and offers suggestions for integrating these components to balance author-driven and reader-driven design features for more effective messaging.

Decoding conjunctions of direction-of-motion and binocular disparity from human visual cortex.

PubMed

Seymour, Kiley J; Clifford, Colin W G

2012-05-01

Motion and binocular disparity are two features in our environment that share a common correspondence problem. Decades of psychophysical research dedicated to understanding stereopsis suggest that these features interact early in human visual processing to disambiguate depth. Single-unit recordings in the monkey also provide evidence for the joint encoding of motion and disparity across much of the dorsal visual stream. Here, we used functional MRI and multivariate pattern analysis to examine where in the human brain conjunctions of motion and disparity are encoded. Subjects sequentially viewed two stimuli that could be distinguished only by their conjunctions of motion and disparity. Specifically, each stimulus contained the same feature information (leftward and rightward motion and crossed and uncrossed disparity) but differed exclusively in the way these features were paired. Our results revealed that a linear classifier could accurately decode which stimulus a subject was viewing based on voxel activation patterns throughout the dorsal visual areas and as early as V2. This decoding success was conditional on some voxels being individually sensitive to the unique conjunctions comprising each stimulus, thus a classifier could not rely on independent information about motion and binocular disparity to distinguish these conjunctions. This study expands on evidence that disparity and motion interact at many levels of human visual processing, particularly within the dorsal stream. It also lends support to the idea that stereopsis is subserved by early mechanisms also tuned to direction of motion.

Visualization of usability and functionality of a professional website through web-mining.

PubMed

Jones, Josette F; Mahoui, Malika; Gopa, Venkata Devi Pragna

2007-10-11

Functional interface design requires understanding of the information system structure and the user. Web logs record user interactions with the interface, and thus provide some insight into user search behavior and efficiency of the search process. The present study uses a data-mining approach with techniques such as association rules, clustering and classification, to visualize the usability and functionality of a digital library through in depth analyses of web logs.

The Characteristics and Limits of Rapid Visual Categorization

PubMed Central

Fabre-Thorpe, Michèle

2011-01-01

Visual categorization appears both effortless and virtually instantaneous. The study by Thorpe et al. (1996) was the first to estimate the processing time necessary to perform fast visual categorization of animals in briefly flashed (20 ms) natural photographs. They observed a large differential EEG activity between target and distracter correct trials that developed from 150 ms after stimulus onset, a value that was later shown to be even shorter in monkeys! With such strong processing time constraints, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that rapid visual categorization was relying on massively parallel, essentially feed-forward processing of visual information. Since 1996, we have conducted a large number of studies to determine the characteristics and limits of fast visual categorization. The present chapter will review some of the main results obtained. I will argue that rapid object categorizations in natural scenes can be done without focused attention and are most likely based on coarse and unconscious visual representations activated with the first available (magnocellular) visual information. Fast visual processing proved efficient for the categorization of large superordinate object or scene categories, but shows its limits when more detailed basic representations are required. The representations for basic objects (dogs, cars) or scenes (mountain or sea landscapes) need additional processing time to be activated. This finding is at odds with the widely accepted idea that such basic representations are at the entry level of the system. Interestingly, focused attention is still not required to perform these time consuming basic categorizations. Finally we will show that object and context processing can interact very early in an ascending wave of visual information processing. We will discuss how such data could result from our experience with a highly structured and predictable surrounding world that shaped neuronal visual selectivity. PMID:22007180

Integration of information and volume visualization for analysis of cell lineage and gene expression during embryogenesis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cedilnik, Andrej; Baumes, Jeffrey; Ibanez, Luis; Megason, Sean; Wylie, Brian

2008-01-01

Dramatic technological advances in the field of genomics have made it possible to sequence the complete genomes of many different organisms. With this overwhelming amount of data at hand, biologists are now confronted with the challenge of understanding the function of the many different elements of the genome. One of the best places to start gaining insight on the mechanisms by which the genome controls an organism is the study of embryogenesis. There are multiple and inter-related layers of information that must be established in order to understand how the genome controls the formation of an organism. One is cell lineage which describes how patterns of cell division give rise to different parts of an organism. Another is gene expression which describes when and where different genes are turned on. Both of these data types can now be acquired using fluorescent laser-scanning (confocal or 2-photon) microscopy of embryos tagged with fluorescent proteins to generate 3D movies of developing embryos. However, analyzing the wealth of resulting images requires tools capable of interactively visualizing several different types of information as well as being scalable to terabytes of data. This paper describes how the combination of existing large data volume visualization and the new Titan information visualization framework of the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) can be applied to the problem of studying the cell lineage of an organism. In particular, by linking the visualization of spatial and temporal gene expression data with novel ways of visualizing cell lineage data, users can study how the genome regulates different aspects of embryonic development.

MassImager: A software for interactive and in-depth analysis of mass spectrometry imaging data.

PubMed

He, Jiuming; Huang, Luojiao; Tian, Runtao; Li, Tiegang; Sun, Chenglong; Song, Xiaowei; Lv, Yiwei; Luo, Zhigang; Li, Xin; Abliz, Zeper

2018-07-26

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has become a powerful tool to probe molecule events in biological tissue. However, it is a widely held viewpoint that one of the biggest challenges is an easy-to-use data processing software for discovering the underlying biological information from complicated and huge MSI dataset. Here, a user-friendly and full-featured MSI software including three subsystems, Solution, Visualization and Intelligence, named MassImager, is developed focusing on interactive visualization, in-situ biomarker discovery and artificial intelligent pathological diagnosis. Simplified data preprocessing and high-throughput MSI data exchange, serialization jointly guarantee the quick reconstruction of ion image and rapid analysis of dozens of gigabytes datasets. It also offers diverse self-defined operations for visual processing, including multiple ion visualization, multiple channel superposition, image normalization, visual resolution enhancement and image filter. Regions-of-interest analysis can be performed precisely through the interactive visualization between the ion images and mass spectra, also the overlaid optical image guide, to directly find out the region-specific biomarkers. Moreover, automatic pattern recognition can be achieved immediately upon the supervised or unsupervised multivariate statistical modeling. Clear discrimination between cancer tissue and adjacent tissue within a MSI dataset can be seen in the generated pattern image, which shows great potential in visually in-situ biomarker discovery and artificial intelligent pathological diagnosis of cancer. All the features are integrated together in MassImager to provide a deep MSI processing solution at the in-situ metabolomics level for biomarker discovery and future clinical pathological diagnosis. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Integration and visualization of systems biology data in context of the genome

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background High-density tiling arrays and new sequencing technologies are generating rapidly increasing volumes of transcriptome and protein-DNA interaction data. Visualization and exploration of this data is critical to understanding the regulatory logic encoded in the genome by which the cell dynamically affects its physiology and interacts with its environment. Results The Gaggle Genome Browser is a cross-platform desktop program for interactively visualizing high-throughput data in the context of the genome. Important features include dynamic panning and zooming, keyword search and open interoperability through the Gaggle framework. Users may bookmark locations on the genome with descriptive annotations and share these bookmarks with other users. The program handles large sets of user-generated data using an in-process database and leverages the facilities of SQL and the R environment for importing and manipulating data. A key aspect of the Gaggle Genome Browser is interoperability. By connecting to the Gaggle framework, the genome browser joins a suite of interconnected bioinformatics tools for analysis and visualization with connectivity to major public repositories of sequences, interactions and pathways. To this flexible environment for exploring and combining data, the Gaggle Genome Browser adds the ability to visualize diverse types of data in relation to its coordinates on the genome. Conclusions Genomic coordinates function as a common key by which disparate biological data types can be related to one another. In the Gaggle Genome Browser, heterogeneous data are joined by their location on the genome to create information-rich visualizations yielding insight into genome organization, transcription and its regulation and, ultimately, a better understanding of the mechanisms that enable the cell to dynamically respond to its environment. PMID:20642854

An integrated system for interactive continuous learning of categorical knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Skočaj, Danijel; Vrečko, Alen; Mahnič, Marko; Janíček, Miroslav; Kruijff, Geert-Jan M.; Hanheide, Marc; Hawes, Nick; Wyatt, Jeremy L.; Keller, Thomas; Zhou, Kai; Zillich, Michael; Kristan, Matej

2016-09-01

This article presents an integrated robot system capable of interactive learning in dialogue with a human. Such a system needs to have several competencies and must be able to process different types of representations. In this article, we describe a collection of mechanisms that enable integration of heterogeneous competencies in a principled way. Central to our design is the creation of beliefs from visual and linguistic information, and the use of these beliefs for planning system behaviour to satisfy internal drives. The system is able to detect gaps in its knowledge and to plan and execute actions that provide information needed to fill these gaps. We propose a hierarchy of mechanisms which are capable of engaging in different kinds of learning interactions, e.g. those initiated by a tutor or by the system itself. We present the theory these mechanisms are build upon and an instantiation of this theory in the form of an integrated robot system. We demonstrate the operation of the system in the case of learning conceptual models of objects and their visual properties.

Reward associations impact both iconic and visual working memory.

PubMed

Infanti, Elisa; Hickey, Clayton; Turatto, Massimo

2015-02-01

Reward plays a fundamental role in human behavior. A growing number of studies have shown that stimuli associated with reward become salient and attract attention. The aim of the present study was to extend these results into the investigation of iconic memory and visual working memory. In two experiments we asked participants to perform a visual-search task where different colors of the target stimuli were paired with high or low reward. We then tested whether the pre-established feature-reward association affected performance on a subsequent visual memory task, in which no reward was provided. In this test phase participants viewed arrays of 8 objects, one of which had unique color that could match the color associated with reward during the previous visual-search task. A probe appeared at varying intervals after stimulus offset to identify the to-be-reported item. Our results suggest that reward biases the encoding of visual information such that items characterized by a reward-associated feature interfere with mnemonic representations of other items in the test display. These results extend current knowledge regarding the influence of reward on early cognitive processes, suggesting that feature-reward associations automatically interact with the encoding and storage of visual information, both in iconic memory and visual working memory. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Information Management for a Large Multidisciplinary Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, Kennie H.; Randall, Donald P.; Cronin, Catherine K.

1992-01-01

In 1989, NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC) initiated the High-Speed Airframe Integration Research (HiSAIR) Program to develop and demonstrate an integrated environment for high-speed aircraft design using advanced multidisciplinary analysis and optimization procedures. The major goals of this program were to evolve the interactions among disciplines and promote sharing of information, to provide a timely exchange of information among aeronautical disciplines, and to increase the awareness of the effects each discipline has upon other disciplines. LaRC historically has emphasized the advancement of analysis techniques. HiSAIR was founded to synthesize these advanced methods into a multidisciplinary design process emphasizing information feedback among disciplines and optimization. Crucial to the development of such an environment are the definition of the required data exchanges and the methodology for both recording the information and providing the exchanges in a timely manner. These requirements demand extensive use of data management techniques, graphic visualization, and interactive computing. HiSAIR represents the first attempt at LaRC to promote interdisciplinary information exchange on a large scale using advanced data management methodologies combined with state-of-the-art, scientific visualization techniques on graphics workstations in a distributed computing environment. The subject of this paper is the development of the data management system for HiSAIR.

Welcome to health information science and systems.

PubMed

Zhang, Yanchun

2013-01-01

Health Information Science and Systems is an exciting, new, multidisciplinary journal that aims to use technologies in computer science to assist in disease diagnoses, treatment, prediction and monitoring through the modeling, design, development, visualization, integration and management of health related information. These computer-science technologies include such as information systems, web technologies, data mining, image processing, user interaction and interface, sensors and wireless networking and are applicable to a wide range of health related information including medical data, biomedical data, bioinformatics data, public health data.

The KUPNetViz: a biological network viewer for multiple -omics datasets in kidney diseases.

PubMed

Moulos, Panagiotis; Klein, Julie; Jupp, Simon; Stevens, Robert; Bascands, Jean-Loup; Schanstra, Joost P

2013-07-24

Constant technological advances have allowed scientists in biology to migrate from conventional single-omics to multi-omics experimental approaches, challenging bioinformatics to bridge this multi-tiered information. Ongoing research in renal biology is no exception. The results of large-scale and/or high throughput experiments, presenting a wealth of information on kidney disease are scattered across the web. To tackle this problem, we recently presented the KUPKB, a multi-omics data repository for renal diseases. In this article, we describe KUPNetViz, a biological graph exploration tool allowing the exploration of KUPKB data through the visualization of biomolecule interactions. KUPNetViz enables the integration of multi-layered experimental data over different species, renal locations and renal diseases to protein-protein interaction networks and allows association with biological functions, biochemical pathways and other functional elements such as miRNAs. KUPNetViz focuses on the simplicity of its usage and the clarity of resulting networks by reducing and/or automating advanced functionalities present in other biological network visualization packages. In addition, it allows the extrapolation of biomolecule interactions across different species, leading to the formulations of new plausible hypotheses, adequate experiment design and to the suggestion of novel biological mechanisms. We demonstrate the value of KUPNetViz by two usage examples: the integration of calreticulin as a key player in a larger interaction network in renal graft rejection and the novel observation of the strong association of interleukin-6 with polycystic kidney disease. The KUPNetViz is an interactive and flexible biological network visualization and exploration tool. It provides renal biologists with biological network snapshots of the complex integrated data of the KUPKB allowing the formulation of new hypotheses in a user friendly manner.

The KUPNetViz: a biological network viewer for multiple -omics datasets in kidney diseases

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Constant technological advances have allowed scientists in biology to migrate from conventional single-omics to multi-omics experimental approaches, challenging bioinformatics to bridge this multi-tiered information. Ongoing research in renal biology is no exception. The results of large-scale and/or high throughput experiments, presenting a wealth of information on kidney disease are scattered across the web. To tackle this problem, we recently presented the KUPKB, a multi-omics data repository for renal diseases. Results In this article, we describe KUPNetViz, a biological graph exploration tool allowing the exploration of KUPKB data through the visualization of biomolecule interactions. KUPNetViz enables the integration of multi-layered experimental data over different species, renal locations and renal diseases to protein-protein interaction networks and allows association with biological functions, biochemical pathways and other functional elements such as miRNAs. KUPNetViz focuses on the simplicity of its usage and the clarity of resulting networks by reducing and/or automating advanced functionalities present in other biological network visualization packages. In addition, it allows the extrapolation of biomolecule interactions across different species, leading to the formulations of new plausible hypotheses, adequate experiment design and to the suggestion of novel biological mechanisms. We demonstrate the value of KUPNetViz by two usage examples: the integration of calreticulin as a key player in a larger interaction network in renal graft rejection and the novel observation of the strong association of interleukin-6 with polycystic kidney disease. Conclusions The KUPNetViz is an interactive and flexible biological network visualization and exploration tool. It provides renal biologists with biological network snapshots of the complex integrated data of the KUPKB allowing the formulation of new hypotheses in a user friendly manner. PMID:23883183

Visual Exemplification and Skin Cancer: The Utility of Exemplars in Promoting Skin Self-Exams and Atypical Nevi Identification.

PubMed

King, Andy J

2016-07-01

The present article reports an experiment investigating untested propositions of exemplification theory in the context of messages promoting early melanoma detection. The study tested visual exemplar presentation types, incorporating visual persuasion principles into the study of exemplification theory and strategic message design. Compared to a control condition, representative visual exemplification was more effective at increasing message effectiveness by eliciting a surprise response, which is consistent with predictions of exemplification theory. Furthermore, participant perception of congruency between the images and text interacted with the type of visual exemplification to explain variation in message effectiveness. Different messaging strategies influenced decision making as well, with the presentation of visual exemplars resulting in people judging the atypicality of moles more conservatively. Overall, results suggest that certain visual messaging strategies may result in unintended effects of presenting people information about skin cancer. Implications for practice are discussed.

No evidence for visual context-dependency of olfactory learning in Drosophila

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yarali, Ayse; Mayerle, Moritz; Nawroth, Christian; Gerber, Bertram

2008-08-01

How is behaviour organised across sensory modalities? Specifically, we ask concerning the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster how visual context affects olfactory learning and recall and whether information about visual context is getting integrated into olfactory memory. We find that changing visual context between training and test does not deteriorate olfactory memory scores, suggesting that these olfactory memories can drive behaviour despite a mismatch of visual context between training and test. Rather, both the establishment and the recall of olfactory memory are generally facilitated by light. In a follow-up experiment, we find no evidence for learning about combinations of odours and visual context as predictors for reinforcement even after explicit training in a so-called biconditional discrimination task. Thus, a ‘true’ interaction between visual and olfactory modalities is not evident; instead, light seems to influence olfactory learning and recall unspecifically, for example by altering motor activity, alertness or olfactory acuity.

Forecasting and visualization of wildfires in a 3D geographical information system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castrillón, M.; Jorge, P. A.; López, I. J.; Macías, A.; Martín, D.; Nebot, R. J.; Sabbagh, I.; Quintana, F. M.; Sánchez, J.; Sánchez, A. J.; Suárez, J. P.; Trujillo, A.

2011-03-01

This paper describes a wildfire forecasting application based on a 3D virtual environment and a fire simulation engine. A novel open-source framework is presented for the development of 3D graphics applications over large geographic areas, offering high performance 3D visualization and powerful interaction tools for the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) community. The application includes a remote module that allows simultaneous connections of several users for monitoring a real wildfire event. The system is able to make a realistic composition of what is really happening in the area of the wildfire with dynamic 3D objects and location of human and material resources in real time, providing a new perspective to analyze the wildfire information. The user is enabled to simulate and visualize the propagation of a fire on the terrain integrating at the same time spatial information on topography and vegetation types with weather and wind data. The application communicates with a remote web service that is in charge of the simulation task. The user may specify several parameters through a friendly interface before the application sends the information to the remote server responsible of carrying out the wildfire forecasting using the FARSITE simulation model. During the process, the server connects to different external resources to obtain up-to-date meteorological data. The client application implements a realistic 3D visualization of the fire evolution on the landscape. A Level Of Detail (LOD) strategy contributes to improve the performance of the visualization system.

A Bayesian Account of Visual–Vestibular Interactions in the Rod-and-Frame Task

PubMed Central

de Brouwer, Anouk J.; Medendorp, W. Pieter

2016-01-01

Abstract Panoramic visual cues, as generated by the objects in the environment, provide the brain with important information about gravity direction. To derive an optimal, i.e., Bayesian, estimate of gravity direction, the brain must combine panoramic information with gravity information detected by the vestibular system. Here, we examined the individual sensory contributions to this estimate psychometrically. We asked human subjects to judge the orientation (clockwise or counterclockwise relative to gravity) of a briefly flashed luminous rod, presented within an oriented square frame (rod-in-frame). Vestibular contributions were manipulated by tilting the subject’s head, whereas visual contributions were manipulated by changing the viewing distance of the rod and frame. Results show a cyclical modulation of the frame-induced bias in perceived verticality across a 90° range of frame orientations. The magnitude of this bias decreased significantly with larger viewing distance, as if visual reliability was reduced. Biases increased significantly when the head was tilted, as if vestibular reliability was reduced. A Bayesian optimal integration model, with distinct vertical and horizontal panoramic weights, a gain factor to allow for visual reliability changes, and ocular counterroll in response to head tilt, provided a good fit to the data. We conclude that subjects flexibly weigh visual panoramic and vestibular information based on their orientation-dependent reliability, resulting in the observed verticality biases and the associated response variabilities. PMID:27844055

What Are They Up To? The Role of Sensory Evidence and Prior Knowledge in Action Understanding

PubMed Central

Chambon, Valerian; Domenech, Philippe; Pacherie, Elisabeth; Koechlin, Etienne; Baraduc, Pierre; Farrer, Chlöé

2011-01-01

Explaining or predicting the behaviour of our conspecifics requires the ability to infer the intentions that motivate it. Such inferences are assumed to rely on two types of information: (1) the sensory information conveyed by movement kinematics and (2) the observer's prior expectations – acquired from past experience or derived from prior knowledge. However, the respective contribution of these two sources of information is still controversial. This controversy stems in part from the fact that “intention” is an umbrella term that may embrace various sub-types each being assigned different scopes and targets. We hypothesized that variations in the scope and target of intentions may account for variations in the contribution of visual kinematics and prior knowledge to the intention inference process. To test this hypothesis, we conducted four behavioural experiments in which participants were instructed to identify different types of intention: basic intentions (i.e. simple goal of a motor act), superordinate intentions (i.e. general goal of a sequence of motor acts), or social intentions (i.e. intentions accomplished in a context of reciprocal interaction). For each of the above-mentioned intentions, we varied (1) the amount of visual information available from the action scene and (2) participant's prior expectations concerning the intention that was more likely to be accomplished. First, we showed that intentional judgments depend on a consistent interaction between visual information and participant's prior expectations. Moreover, we demonstrated that this interaction varied according to the type of intention to be inferred, with participant's priors rather than perceptual evidence exerting a greater effect on the inference of social and superordinate intentions. The results are discussed by appealing to the specific properties of each type of intention considered and further interpreted in the light of a hierarchical model of action representation. PMID:21364992

QuIN: A Web Server for Querying and Visualizing Chromatin Interaction Networks.

PubMed

Thibodeau, Asa; Márquez, Eladio J; Luo, Oscar; Ruan, Yijun; Menghi, Francesca; Shin, Dong-Guk; Stitzel, Michael L; Vera-Licona, Paola; Ucar, Duygu

2016-06-01

Recent studies of the human genome have indicated that regulatory elements (e.g. promoters and enhancers) at distal genomic locations can interact with each other via chromatin folding and affect gene expression levels. Genomic technologies for mapping interactions between DNA regions, e.g., ChIA-PET and HiC, can generate genome-wide maps of interactions between regulatory elements. These interaction datasets are important resources to infer distal gene targets of non-coding regulatory elements and to facilitate prioritization of critical loci for important cellular functions. With the increasing diversity and complexity of genomic information and public ontologies, making sense of these datasets demands integrative and easy-to-use software tools. Moreover, network representation of chromatin interaction maps enables effective data visualization, integration, and mining. Currently, there is no software that can take full advantage of network theory approaches for the analysis of chromatin interaction datasets. To fill this gap, we developed a web-based application, QuIN, which enables: 1) building and visualizing chromatin interaction networks, 2) annotating networks with user-provided private and publicly available functional genomics and interaction datasets, 3) querying network components based on gene name or chromosome location, and 4) utilizing network based measures to identify and prioritize critical regulatory targets and their direct and indirect interactions. QuIN's web server is available at http://quin.jax.org QuIN is developed in Java and JavaScript, utilizing an Apache Tomcat web server and MySQL database and the source code is available under the GPLV3 license available on GitHub: https://github.com/UcarLab/QuIN/.

The Experience of Force: The Role of Haptic Experience of Forces in Visual Perception of Object Motion and Interactions, Mental Simulation, and Motion-Related Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Peter A.

2012-01-01

Forces are experienced in actions on objects. The mechanoreceptor system is stimulated by proximal forces in interactions with objects, and experiences of force occur in a context of information yielded by other sensory modalities, principally vision. These experiences are registered and stored as episodic traces in the brain. These stored…

Melodic sound enhances visual awareness of congruent musical notes, but only if you can read music.

PubMed

Lee, Minyoung; Blake, Randolph; Kim, Sujin; Kim, Chai-Youn

2015-07-07

Predictive influences of auditory information on resolution of visual competition were investigated using music, whose visual symbolic notation is familiar only to those with musical training. Results from two experiments using different experimental paradigms revealed that melodic congruence between what is seen and what is heard impacts perceptual dynamics during binocular rivalry. This bisensory interaction was observed only when the musical score was perceptually dominant, not when it was suppressed from awareness, and it was observed only in people who could read music. Results from two ancillary experiments showed that this effect of congruence cannot be explained by differential patterns of eye movements or by differential response sluggishness associated with congruent score/melody combinations. Taken together, these results demonstrate robust audiovisual interaction based on high-level, symbolic representations and its predictive influence on perceptual dynamics during binocular rivalry.

How 3D immersive visualization is changing medical diagnostics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koning, Anton H. J.

2011-03-01

Originally the only way to look inside the human body without opening it up was by means of two dimensional (2D) images obtained using X-ray equipment. The fact that human anatomy is inherently three dimensional leads to ambiguities in interpretation and problems of occlusion. Three dimensional (3D) imaging modalities such as CT, MRI and 3D ultrasound remove these drawbacks and are now part of routine medical care. While most hospitals 'have gone digital', meaning that the images are no longer printed on film, they are still being viewed on 2D screens. However, this way valuable depth information is lost, and some interactions become unnecessarily complex or even unfeasible. Using a virtual reality (VR) system to present volumetric data means that depth information is presented to the viewer and 3D interaction is made possible. At the Erasmus MC we have developed V-Scope, an immersive volume visualization system for visualizing a variety of (bio-)medical volumetric datasets, ranging from 3D ultrasound, via CT and MRI, to confocal microscopy, OPT and 3D electron-microscopy data. In this talk we will address the advantages of such a system for both medical diagnostics as well as for (bio)medical research.

Interactive metagenomic visualization in a Web browser

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background A critical output of metagenomic studies is the estimation of abundances of taxonomical or functional groups. The inherent uncertainty in assignments to these groups makes it important to consider both their hierarchical contexts and their prediction confidence. The current tools for visualizing metagenomic data, however, omit or distort quantitative hierarchical relationships and lack the facility for displaying secondary variables. Results Here we present Krona, a new visualization tool that allows intuitive exploration of relative abundances and confidences within the complex hierarchies of metagenomic classifications. Krona combines a variant of radial, space-filling displays with parametric coloring and interactive polar-coordinate zooming. The HTML5 and JavaScript implementation enables fully interactive charts that can be explored with any modern Web browser, without the need for installed software or plug-ins. This Web-based architecture also allows each chart to be an independent document, making them easy to share via e-mail or post to a standard Web server. To illustrate Krona's utility, we describe its application to various metagenomic data sets and its compatibility with popular metagenomic analysis tools. Conclusions Krona is both a powerful metagenomic visualization tool and a demonstration of the potential of HTML5 for highly accessible bioinformatic visualizations. Its rich and interactive displays facilitate more informed interpretations of metagenomic analyses, while its implementation as a browser-based application makes it extremely portable and easily adopted into existing analysis packages. Both the Krona rendering code and conversion tools are freely available under a BSD open-source license, and available from: http://krona.sourceforge.net. PMID:21961884

Virtual Environments in Scientific Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bryson, Steve; Lisinski, T. A. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

Virtual environment technology is a new way of approaching the interface between computers and humans. Emphasizing display and user control that conforms to the user's natural ways of perceiving and thinking about space, virtual environment technologies enhance the ability to perceive and interact with computer generated graphic information. This enhancement potentially has a major effect on the field of scientific visualization. Current examples of this technology include the Virtual Windtunnel being developed at NASA Ames Research Center. Other major institutions such as the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and SRI International are also exploring this technology. This talk will be describe several implementations of virtual environments for use in scientific visualization. Examples include the visualization of unsteady fluid flows (the virtual windtunnel), the visualization of geodesics in curved spacetime, surface manipulation, and examples developed at various laboratories.

The social computing room: a multi-purpose collaborative visualization environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Borland, David; Conway, Michael; Coposky, Jason; Ginn, Warren; Idaszak, Ray

2010-01-01

The Social Computing Room (SCR) is a novel collaborative visualization environment for viewing and interacting with large amounts of visual data. The SCR consists of a square room with 12 projectors (3 per wall) used to display a single 360-degree desktop environment that provides a large physical real estate for arranging visual information. The SCR was designed to be cost-effective, collaborative, configurable, widely applicable, and approachable for naive users. Because the SCR displays a single desktop, a wide range of applications is easily supported, making it possible for a variety of disciplines to take advantage of the room. We provide a technical overview of the room and highlight its application to scientific visualization, arts and humanities projects, research group meetings, and virtual worlds, among other uses.

Hierarchical Spatio-temporal Visual Analysis of Cluster Evolution in Electrocorticography Data

DOE PAGES

Murugesan, Sugeerth; Bouchard, Kristofer; Chang, Edward; ...

2016-10-02

Here, we present ECoG ClusterFlow, a novel interactive visual analysis tool for the exploration of high-resolution Electrocorticography (ECoG) data. Our system detects and visualizes dynamic high-level structures, such as communities, using the time-varying spatial connectivity network derived from the high-resolution ECoG data. ECoG ClusterFlow provides a multi-scale visualization of the spatio-temporal patterns underlying the time-varying communities using two views: 1) an overview summarizing the evolution of clusters over time and 2) a hierarchical glyph-based technique that uses data aggregation and small multiples techniques to visualize the propagation of clusters in their spatial domain. ECoG ClusterFlow makes it possible 1) tomore » compare the spatio-temporal evolution patterns across various time intervals, 2) to compare the temporal information at varying levels of granularity, and 3) to investigate the evolution of spatial patterns without occluding the spatial context information. Lastly, we present case studies done in collaboration with neuroscientists on our team for both simulated and real epileptic seizure data aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of our approach.« less

Visual Perspective and Feedback Guidance for VR Free-Throw Training.

PubMed

Covaci, Alexandra; Olivier, Anne-Hélène; Multon, Franck

2015-01-01

Accurate distance perception and natural interactions are mandatory conditions when training precision aiming tasks in VR. However, many factors specific to virtual environments (VEs) lead to differences in the way users execute a motor task in VR versus the real world. To investigate these differences, the authors performed a study on basketball beginners' free-throw performance in VEs under different visual conditions. Although the success rate is not statistically different, some adaptations occurred in the way the users performed the task, depending on the visual conditions. In the third-person perspective visual condition, the release parameters indicate that the users more accurately estimated distance to target. Adding visual guidance information (gradual depth information showing the ideal ball trajectory) also led to more natural motor behavior. The final aim of this study was to develop a reliable basketball free-throw training system in VEs, so the authors compared beginners' performances in VR with experts' models of performance. Their results show that most of the performance variables tended to evolve closer to the experts' performance during the training in the VE.

Simultaneous colour visualizations of multiple ALS point cloud attributes for land cover and vegetation analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zlinszky, András; Schroiff, Anke; Otepka, Johannes; Mandlburger, Gottfried; Pfeifer, Norbert

2014-05-01

LIDAR point clouds hold valuable information for land cover and vegetation analysis, not only in the spatial distribution of the points but also in their various attributes. However, LIDAR point clouds are rarely used for visual interpretation, since for most users, the point cloud is difficult to interpret compared to passive optical imagery. Meanwhile, point cloud viewing software is available allowing interactive 3D interpretation, but typically only one attribute at a time. This results in a large number of points with the same colour, crowding the scene and often obscuring detail. We developed a scheme for mapping information from multiple LIDAR point attributes to the Red, Green, and Blue channels of a widely used LIDAR data format, which are otherwise mostly used to add information from imagery to create "photorealistic" point clouds. The possible combinations of parameters are therefore represented in a wide range of colours, but relative differences in individual parameter values of points can be well understood. The visualization was implemented in OPALS software, using a simple and robust batch script, and is viewer independent since the information is stored in the point cloud data file itself. In our case, the following colour channel assignment delivered best results: Echo amplitude in the Red, echo width in the Green and normalized height above a Digital Terrain Model in the Blue channel. With correct parameter scaling (but completely without point classification), points belonging to asphalt and bare soil are dark red, low grassland and crop vegetation are bright red to yellow, shrubs and low trees are green and high trees are blue. Depending on roof material and DTM quality, buildings are shown from red through purple to dark blue. Erroneously high or low points, or points with incorrect amplitude or echo width usually have colours contrasting from terrain or vegetation. This allows efficient visual interpretation of the point cloud in planar, profile and 3D views since it reduces crowding of the scene and delivers intuitive contextual information. The resulting visualization has proved useful for vegetation analysis for habitat mapping, and can also be applied as a first step for point cloud level classification. An interactive demonstration of the visualization script is shown during poster attendance, including the opportunity to view your own point cloud sample files.

The working memory Ponzo illusion: Involuntary integration of visuospatial information stored in visual working memory.

PubMed

Shen, Mowei; Xu, Haokui; Zhang, Haihang; Shui, Rende; Zhang, Meng; Zhou, Jifan

2015-08-01

Visual working memory (VWM) has been traditionally viewed as a mental structure subsequent to visual perception that stores the final output of perceptual processing. However, VWM has recently been emphasized as a critical component of online perception, providing storage for the intermediate perceptual representations produced during visual processing. This interactive view holds the core assumption that VWM is not the terminus of perceptual processing; the stored visual information rather continues to undergo perceptual processing if necessary. The current study tests this assumption, demonstrating an example of involuntary integration of the VWM content, by creating the Ponzo illusion in VWM: when the Ponzo illusion figure was divided into its individual components and sequentially encoded into VWM, the temporally separated components were involuntarily integrated, leading to the distorted length perception of the two horizontal lines. This VWM Ponzo illusion was replicated when the figure components were presented in different combinations and presentation order. The magnitude of the illusion was significantly correlated between VWM and perceptual versions of the Ponzo illusion. These results suggest that the information integration underling the VWM Ponzo illusion is constrained by the laws of visual perception and similarly affected by the common individual factors that govern its perception. Thus, our findings provide compelling evidence that VWM functions as a buffer serving perceptual processes at early stages. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

EpitopeViewer: a Java application for the visualization and analysis of immune epitopes in the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB).

PubMed

Beaver, John E; Bourne, Philip E; Ponomarenko, Julia V

2007-02-21

Structural information about epitopes, particularly the three-dimensional (3D) structures of antigens in complex with immune receptors, presents a valuable source of data for immunology. This information is available in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and provided in curated form by the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB). With continued growth in these data and the importance in understanding molecular level interactions of immunological interest there is a need for new specialized molecular visualization and analysis tools. The EpitopeViewer is a platform-independent Java application for the visualization of the three-dimensional structure and sequence of epitopes and analyses of their interactions with antigen-specific receptors of the immune system (antibodies, T cell receptors and MHC molecules). The viewer renders both 3D views and two-dimensional plots of intermolecular interactions between the antigen and receptor(s) by reading curated data from the IEDB and/or calculated on-the-fly from atom coordinates from the PDB. The 3D views and associated interactions can be saved for future use and publication. The EpitopeViewer can be accessed from the IEDB Web site http://www.immuneepitope.org through the quick link 'Browse Records by 3D Structure.' The EpitopeViewer is designed and been tested for use by immunologists with little or no training in molecular graphics. The EpitopeViewer can be launched from most popular Web browsers without user intervention. A Java Runtime Environment (RJE) 1.4.2 or higher is required.

Informing Regional Water-Energy-Food Nexus with System Analysis and Interactive Visualizations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Y. C. E.; Wi, S.

2016-12-01

Communicating scientific results to non-technical practitioners is challenging due to their differing interests, concerns and agendas. It is further complicated by the growing number of relevant factors that need to be considered, such as climate change and demographic dynamic. Visualization is an effective method for the scientific community to disseminate results, and it represents an opportunity for the future of water resources systems analysis (WRSA). This study demonstrates an intuitive way to communicate WRSA results to practitioners using interactive web-based visualization tools developed by the JavaScript library: Data-Driven Documents (D3) with a case study in Great Ruaha River of Tanzania. The decreasing trend of streamflow during the last decades in the region highlights the need of assessing the water usage competition between agricultural production, energy generation, and ecosystem service. Our team conduct the advance water resources systems analysis to inform policy that will affect the water-energy-food nexus. Modeling results are presented in the web-based visualization tools and allow non-technical practitioners to brush the graph directly (e. g. Figure 1). The WRSA suggests that no single measure can completely resolve the water competition. A combination of measures, each of which is acceptable from a social and economic perspective, and accepting that zero flows cannot be totally eliminated during dry years in the wetland, are likely to be the best way forward.

Development of a Disaster Information Visualization Dashboard: A Case Study of Three Typhoons in Taiwan in 2016

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Su, Wen-Ray; Tsai, Yuan-Fan; Huang, Kuei-Chin; Hsieh, Ching-En

2017-04-01

To facilitate disaster response and enhance the effectiveness of disaster prevention and relief, people and emergency response personnel should be able to rapidly acquire and understand information when disasters occur. However, in existing disaster platforms information is typically presented in text tables, static charts, and maps with points. These formats do not make it easy for users to understand the overall situation. Therefore, this study converts data into human-readable charts by using data visualization techniques, and builds a disaster information dashboard that is concise, attractive and flexible. This information dashboard integrates temporally and spatially correlated data, disaster statistics according to category and county, lists of disasters, and any other relevant information. The graphs are animated and interactive. The dashboard allows users to filter the data according to their needs and thus to assimilate the information more rapidly. In this study, we applied the information dashboard to the analysis of landslides during three typhoon events in 2016: Typhoon Nepartak, Typhoon Meranti and Typhoon Megi. According to the statistical results in the dashboard, the order of frequency of the disaster categories in all three events combined was rock fall, roadbed loss, slope slump, road blockage and debris flow. Disasters occurred mainly in the areas that received the most rainfall. Typhoons Nepartak and Meranti mainly affected Taitung, and Typhoon Megi mainly affected Kaohsiung. The towns Xiulin, Fengbin, Fenglin and Guangfu in Hualian County were all issued with debris flow warnings in all three typhoon events. The disaster information dashboard developed in this study allows the user to rapidly assess the overall disaster situation. It clearly and concisely reveals interactions between time, space and disaster type, and also provides comprehensive details about the disaster. The dashboard provides a foundation for future disaster visualization, since it can combine and present real-time information of various types; as such it will strengthen decision making in disaster prevention management.

An evaluation-guided approach for effective data visualization on tablets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Games, Peter S.; Joshi, Alark

2015-01-01

There is a rising trend of data analysis and visualization tasks being performed on a tablet device. Apps with interactive data visualization capabilities are available for a wide variety of domains. We investigate whether users grasp how to effectively interpret and interact with visualizations. We conducted a detailed user evaluation to study the abilities of individuals with respect to analyzing data on a tablet through an interactive visualization app. Based upon the results of the user evaluation, we find that most subjects performed well at understanding and interacting with simple visualizations, specifically tables and line charts. A majority of the subjects struggled with identifying interactive widgets, recognizing interactive widgets with overloaded functionality, and understanding visualizations which do not display data for sorted attributes. Based on our study, we identify guidelines for designers and developers of mobile data visualization apps that include recommendations for effective data representation and interaction.

Integrating visualization and interaction research to improve scientific workflows.

PubMed

Keefe, Daniel F

2010-01-01

Scientific-visualization research is, nearly by necessity, interdisciplinary. In addition to their collaborators in application domains (for example, cell biology), researchers regularly build on close ties with disciplines related to visualization, such as graphics, human-computer interaction, and cognitive science. One of these ties is the connection between visualization and interaction research. This isn't a new direction for scientific visualization (see the "Early Connections" sidebar). However, momentum recently seems to be increasing toward integrating visualization research (for example, effective visual presentation of data) with interaction research (for example, innovative interactive techniques that facilitate manipulating and exploring data). We see evidence of this trend in several places, including the visualization literature and conferences.

The contribution of visual areas to speech comprehension: a PET study in cochlear implants patients and normal-hearing subjects.

PubMed

Giraud, Anne Lise; Truy, Eric

2002-01-01

Early visual cortex can be recruited by meaningful sounds in the absence of visual information. This occurs in particular in cochlear implant (CI) patients whose dependency on visual cues in speech comprehension is increased. Such cross-modal interaction mirrors the response of early auditory cortex to mouth movements (speech reading) and may reflect the natural expectancy of the visual counterpart of sounds, lip movements. Here we pursue the hypothesis that visual activations occur specifically in response to meaningful sounds. We performed PET in both CI patients and controls, while subjects listened either to their native language or to a completely unknown language. A recruitment of early visual cortex, the left posterior inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and the left superior parietal cortex was observed in both groups. While no further activation occurred in the group of normal-hearing subjects, CI patients additionally recruited the right perirhinal/fusiform and mid-fusiform, the right temporo-occipito-parietal (TOP) junction and the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPF, Broca's area). This study confirms a participation of visual cortical areas in semantic processing of speech sounds. Observation of early visual activation in normal-hearing subjects shows that auditory-to-visual cross-modal effects can also be recruited under natural hearing conditions. In cochlear implant patients, speech activates the mid-fusiform gyrus in the vicinity of the so-called face area. This suggests that specific cross-modal interaction involving advanced stages in the visual processing hierarchy develops after cochlear implantation and may be the correlate of increased usage of lip-reading.

Visualizing turbulent mixing of gases and particles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ma, Kwan-Liu; Smith, Philip J.; Jain, Sandeep

1995-01-01

A physical model and interactive computer graphics techniques have been developed for the visualization of the basic physical process of stochastic dispersion and mixing from steady-state CFD calculations. The mixing of massless particles and inertial particles is visualized by transforming the vector field from a traditionally Eulerian reference frame into a Lagrangian reference frame. Groups of particles are traced through the vector field for the mean path as well as their statistical dispersion about the mean position by using added scalar information about the root mean square value of the vector field and its Lagrangian time scale. In this way, clouds of particles in a turbulent environment are traced, not just mean paths. In combustion simulations of many industrial processes, good mixing is required to achieve a sufficient degree of combustion efficiency. The ability to visualize this multiphase mixing can not only help identify poor mixing but also explain the mechanism for poor mixing. The information gained from the visualization can be used to improve the overall combustion efficiency in utility boilers or propulsion devices. We have used this technique to visualize steady-state simulations of the combustion performance in several furnace designs.

Evidence for Separate Contributions of High and Low Spatial Frequencies during Visual Word Recognition.

PubMed

Winsler, Kurt; Holcomb, Phillip J; Midgley, Katherine J; Grainger, Jonathan

2017-01-01

Previous studies have shown that different spatial frequency information processing streams interact during the recognition of visual stimuli. However, it is a matter of debate as to the contributions of high and low spatial frequency (HSF and LSF) information for visual word recognition. This study examined the role of different spatial frequencies in visual word recognition using event-related potential (ERP) masked priming. EEG was recorded from 32 scalp sites in 30 English-speaking adults in a go/no-go semantic categorization task. Stimuli were white characters on a neutral gray background. Targets were uppercase five letter words preceded by a forward-mask (#######) and a 50 ms lowercase prime. Primes were either the same word (repeated) or a different word (un-repeated) than the subsequent target and either contained only high, only low, or full spatial frequency information. Additionally within each condition, half of the prime-target pairs were high lexical frequency, and half were low. In the full spatial frequency condition, typical ERP masked priming effects were found with an attenuated N250 (sub-lexical) and N400 (lexical-semantic) for repeated compared to un-repeated primes. For HSF primes there was a weaker N250 effect which interacted with lexical frequency, a significant reversal of the effect around 300 ms, and an N400-like effect for only high lexical frequency word pairs. LSF primes did not produce any of the classic ERP repetition priming effects, however they did elicit a distinct early effect around 200 ms in the opposite direction of typical repetition effects. HSF information accounted for many of the masked repetition priming ERP effects and therefore suggests that HSFs are more crucial for word recognition. However, LSFs did produce their own pattern of priming effects indicating that larger scale information may still play a role in word recognition.

The Role of Audio-Visual Feedback in a Thought-Based Control of a Humanoid Robot: A BCI Study in Healthy and Spinal Cord Injured People.

PubMed

Tidoni, Emmanuele; Gergondet, Pierre; Fusco, Gabriele; Kheddar, Abderrahmane; Aglioti, Salvatore M

2017-06-01

The efficient control of our body and successful interaction with the environment are possible through the integration of multisensory information. Brain-computer interface (BCI) may allow people with sensorimotor disorders to actively interact in the world. In this study, visual information was paired with auditory feedback to improve the BCI control of a humanoid surrogate. Healthy and spinal cord injured (SCI) people were asked to embody a humanoid robot and complete a pick-and-place task by means of a visual evoked potentials BCI system. Participants observed the remote environment from the robot's perspective through a head mounted display. Human-footsteps and computer-beep sounds were used as synchronous/asynchronous auditory feedback. Healthy participants achieved better placing accuracy when listening to human footstep sounds relative to a computer-generated sound. SCI people demonstrated more difficulty in steering the robot during asynchronous auditory feedback conditions. Importantly, subjective reports highlighted that the BCI mask overlaying the display did not limit the observation of the scenario and the feeling of being in control of the robot. Overall, the data seem to suggest that sensorimotor-related information may improve the control of external devices. Further studies are required to understand how the contribution of residual sensory channels could improve the reliability of BCI systems.

Coupling Visualization, Simulation, and Deep Learning for Ensemble Steering of Complex Energy Models: Preprint

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Potter, Kristin C; Brunhart-Lupo, Nicholas J; Bush, Brian W

We have developed a framework for the exploration, design, and planning of energy systems that combines interactive visualization with machine-learning based approximations of simulations through a general purpose dataflow API. Our system provides a visual inter- face allowing users to explore an ensemble of energy simulations representing a subset of the complex input parameter space, and spawn new simulations to 'fill in' input regions corresponding to new enegery system scenarios. Unfortunately, many energy simula- tions are far too slow to provide interactive responses. To support interactive feedback, we are developing reduced-form models via machine learning techniques, which provide statistically soundmore » esti- mates of the full simulations at a fraction of the computational cost and which are used as proxies for the full-form models. Fast com- putation and an agile dataflow enhance the engagement with energy simulations, and allow researchers to better allocate computational resources to capture informative relationships within the system and provide a low-cost method for validating and quality-checking large-scale modeling efforts.« less

Seismpol_ a visual-basic computer program for interactive and automatic earthquake waveform analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patanè, Domenico; Ferrari, Ferruccio

1997-11-01

A Microsoft Visual-Basic computer program for waveform analysis of seismic signals is presented. The program combines interactive and automatic processing of digital signals using data recorded by three-component seismic stations. The analysis procedure can be used in either an interactive earthquake analysis or an automatic on-line processing of seismic recordings. The algorithm works in the time domain using the Covariance Matrix Decomposition method (CMD), so that polarization characteristics may be computed continuously in real time and seismic phases can be identified and discriminated. Visual inspection of the particle motion in hortogonal planes of projection (hodograms) reduces the danger of misinterpretation derived from the application of the polarization filter. The choice of time window and frequency intervals improves the quality of the extracted polarization information. In fact, the program uses a band-pass Butterworth filter to process the signals in the frequency domain by analysis of a selected signal window into a series of narrow frequency bands. Significant results supported by well defined polarizations and source azimuth estimates for P and S phases are also obtained for short-period seismic events (local microearthquakes).

Understanding interfirm relationships in business ecosystems with interactive visualization.

PubMed

Basole, Rahul C; Clear, Trustin; Hu, Mengdie; Mehrotra, Harshit; Stasko, John

2013-12-01

Business ecosystems are characterized by large, complex, and global networks of firms, often from many different market segments, all collaborating, partnering, and competing to create and deliver new products and services. Given the rapidly increasing scale, complexity, and rate of change of business ecosystems, as well as economic and competitive pressures, analysts are faced with the formidable task of quickly understanding the fundamental characteristics of these interfirm networks. Existing tools, however, are predominantly query- or list-centric with limited interactive, exploratory capabilities. Guided by a field study of corporate analysts, we have designed and implemented dotlink360, an interactive visualization system that provides capabilities to gain systemic insight into the compositional, temporal, and connective characteristics of business ecosystems. dotlink360 consists of novel, multiple connected views enabling the analyst to explore, discover, and understand interfirm networks for a focal firm, specific market segments or countries, and the entire business ecosystem. System evaluation by a small group of prototypical users shows supporting evidence of the benefits of our approach. This design study contributes to the relatively unexplored, but promising area of exploratory information visualization in market research and business strategy.

Multisensory emotion perception in congenitally, early, and late deaf CI users

PubMed Central

Nava, Elena; Villwock, Agnes K.; Büchner, Andreas; Lenarz, Thomas; Röder, Brigitte

2017-01-01

Emotions are commonly recognized by combining auditory and visual signals (i.e., vocal and facial expressions). Yet it is unknown whether the ability to link emotional signals across modalities depends on early experience with audio-visual stimuli. In the present study, we investigated the role of auditory experience at different stages of development for auditory, visual, and multisensory emotion recognition abilities in three groups of adolescent and adult cochlear implant (CI) users. CI users had a different deafness onset and were compared to three groups of age- and gender-matched hearing control participants. We hypothesized that congenitally deaf (CD) but not early deaf (ED) and late deaf (LD) CI users would show reduced multisensory interactions and a higher visual dominance in emotion perception than their hearing controls. The CD (n = 7), ED (deafness onset: <3 years of age; n = 7), and LD (deafness onset: >3 years; n = 13) CI users and the control participants performed an emotion recognition task with auditory, visual, and audio-visual emotionally congruent and incongruent nonsense speech stimuli. In different blocks, participants judged either the vocal (Voice task) or the facial expressions (Face task). In the Voice task, all three CI groups performed overall less efficiently than their respective controls and experienced higher interference from incongruent facial information. Furthermore, the ED CI users benefitted more than their controls from congruent faces and the CD CI users showed an analogous trend. In the Face task, recognition efficiency of the CI users and controls did not differ. Our results suggest that CI users acquire multisensory interactions to some degree, even after congenital deafness. When judging affective prosody they appear impaired and more strongly biased by concurrent facial information than typically hearing individuals. We speculate that limitations inherent to the CI contribute to these group differences. PMID:29023525

Multisensory emotion perception in congenitally, early, and late deaf CI users.

PubMed

Fengler, Ineke; Nava, Elena; Villwock, Agnes K; Büchner, Andreas; Lenarz, Thomas; Röder, Brigitte

2017-01-01

Emotions are commonly recognized by combining auditory and visual signals (i.e., vocal and facial expressions). Yet it is unknown whether the ability to link emotional signals across modalities depends on early experience with audio-visual stimuli. In the present study, we investigated the role of auditory experience at different stages of development for auditory, visual, and multisensory emotion recognition abilities in three groups of adolescent and adult cochlear implant (CI) users. CI users had a different deafness onset and were compared to three groups of age- and gender-matched hearing control participants. We hypothesized that congenitally deaf (CD) but not early deaf (ED) and late deaf (LD) CI users would show reduced multisensory interactions and a higher visual dominance in emotion perception than their hearing controls. The CD (n = 7), ED (deafness onset: <3 years of age; n = 7), and LD (deafness onset: >3 years; n = 13) CI users and the control participants performed an emotion recognition task with auditory, visual, and audio-visual emotionally congruent and incongruent nonsense speech stimuli. In different blocks, participants judged either the vocal (Voice task) or the facial expressions (Face task). In the Voice task, all three CI groups performed overall less efficiently than their respective controls and experienced higher interference from incongruent facial information. Furthermore, the ED CI users benefitted more than their controls from congruent faces and the CD CI users showed an analogous trend. In the Face task, recognition efficiency of the CI users and controls did not differ. Our results suggest that CI users acquire multisensory interactions to some degree, even after congenital deafness. When judging affective prosody they appear impaired and more strongly biased by concurrent facial information than typically hearing individuals. We speculate that limitations inherent to the CI contribute to these group differences.

Visual Feedback of Tongue Movement for Novel Speech Sound Learning

PubMed Central

Katz, William F.; Mehta, Sonya

2015-01-01

Pronunciation training studies have yielded important information concerning the processing of audiovisual (AV) information. Second language (L2) learners show increased reliance on bottom-up, multimodal input for speech perception (compared to monolingual individuals). However, little is known about the role of viewing one's own speech articulation processes during speech training. The current study investigated whether real-time, visual feedback for tongue movement can improve a speaker's learning of non-native speech sounds. An interactive 3D tongue visualization system based on electromagnetic articulography (EMA) was used in a speech training experiment. Native speakers of American English produced a novel speech sound (/ɖ/; a voiced, coronal, palatal stop) before, during, and after trials in which they viewed their own speech movements using the 3D model. Talkers' productions were evaluated using kinematic (tongue-tip spatial positioning) and acoustic (burst spectra) measures. The results indicated a rapid gain in accuracy associated with visual feedback training. The findings are discussed with respect to neural models for multimodal speech processing. PMID:26635571

Pyramidal neurovision architecture for vision machines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gupta, Madan M.; Knopf, George K.

1993-08-01

The vision system employed by an intelligent robot must be active; active in the sense that it must be capable of selectively acquiring the minimal amount of relevant information for a given task. An efficient active vision system architecture that is based loosely upon the parallel-hierarchical (pyramidal) structure of the biological visual pathway is presented in this paper. Although the computational architecture of the proposed pyramidal neuro-vision system is far less sophisticated than the architecture of the biological visual pathway, it does retain some essential features such as the converging multilayered structure of its biological counterpart. In terms of visual information processing, the neuro-vision system is constructed from a hierarchy of several interactive computational levels, whereupon each level contains one or more nonlinear parallel processors. Computationally efficient vision machines can be developed by utilizing both the parallel and serial information processing techniques within the pyramidal computing architecture. A computer simulation of a pyramidal vision system for active scene surveillance is presented.

Explore Earth Science Datasets for STEM with the NASA GES DISC Online Visualization and Analysis Tool, GIOVANNI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Z.; Acker, J. G.; Kempler, S. J.

2016-12-01

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) is one of twelve NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Data Centers that provide Earth science data, information, and services to research scientists, applications scientists, applications users, and students around the world. The GES DISC is the home (archive) of NASA Precipitation and Hydrology, as well as Atmospheric Composition and Dynamics remote sensing data and information. To facilitate Earth science data access, the GES DISC has been developing user-friendly data services for users at different levels. Among them, the Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure (GIOVANNI, http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov/) allows users to explore satellite-based data using sophisticated analyses and visualizations without downloading data and software, which is particularly suitable for novices to use NASA datasets in STEM activities. In this presentation, we will briefly introduce GIOVANNI and recommend datasets for STEM. Examples of using these datasets in STEM activities will be presented as well.

Investigation of the chemical interface in the soybean–aphid and rice–bacteria interactions using MALDI-mass spectrometry imaging

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Klein, Adam T.; Yagnik, Gargey B.; Hohenstein, Jessica D.

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is an emerging technology for high-resolution plant biology. It has been utilized to study plant–pest interactions, but limited to the surface interfaces. Here we expand the technology to explore the chemical interactions occurring inside the plant tissues. Two sample preparation methods, imprinting and fracturing, were developed and applied, for the first time, to visualize internal metabolites of leaves in matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI)-MSI. This is also the first time nanoparticle-based ionization was implemented to ionize diterpenoid phytochemicals that were difficult to analyze with traditional organic matrices. The interactions between rice–bacterium and soybean–aphid were investigated asmore » two model systems to demonstrate the capability of high-resolution MSI based on MALDI. Localized molecular information on various plant- or pest-derived chemicals provided valuable insight for the molecular processes occurring during the plant–pest interactions. Basically, salicylic acid and isoflavone based resistance was visualized in the soybean–aphid system and antibiotic diterpenoids in rice–bacterium interactions.« less

Investigation of the chemical interface in the soybean–aphid and rice–bacteria interactions using MALDI-mass spectrometry imaging

DOE PAGES

Klein, Adam T.; Yagnik, Gargey B.; Hohenstein, Jessica D.; ...

2015-04-27

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is an emerging technology for high-resolution plant biology. It has been utilized to study plant–pest interactions, but limited to the surface interfaces. Here we expand the technology to explore the chemical interactions occurring inside the plant tissues. Two sample preparation methods, imprinting and fracturing, were developed and applied, for the first time, to visualize internal metabolites of leaves in matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI)-MSI. This is also the first time nanoparticle-based ionization was implemented to ionize diterpenoid phytochemicals that were difficult to analyze with traditional organic matrices. The interactions between rice–bacterium and soybean–aphid were investigated asmore » two model systems to demonstrate the capability of high-resolution MSI based on MALDI. Localized molecular information on various plant- or pest-derived chemicals provided valuable insight for the molecular processes occurring during the plant–pest interactions. Basically, salicylic acid and isoflavone based resistance was visualized in the soybean–aphid system and antibiotic diterpenoids in rice–bacterium interactions.« less

Trying to Move Your Unseen Static Arm Modulates Visually-Evoked Kinesthetic Illusion

PubMed Central

Metral, Morgane; Blettery, Baptiste; Bresciani, Jean-Pierre; Luyat, Marion; Guerraz, Michel

2013-01-01

Although kinesthesia is known to largely depend on afferent inflow, recent data suggest that central signals originating from volitional control (efferent outflow) could also be involved and interact with the former to build up a coherent percept. Evidence derives from both clinical and experimental observations where vision, which is of primary importance in kinesthesia, was systematically precluded. The purpose of the present experiment was to assess the role of volitional effort in kinesthesia when visual information is available. Participants (n=20) produced isometric contraction (10-20% of maximal voluntary force) of their right arm while their left arm, which image was reflected in a mirror, either was passively moved into flexion/extension by a motorized manipulandum, or remained static. The contraction of the right arm was either congruent with or opposite to the passive displacements of the left arm. Results revealed that in most trials, kinesthetic illusions were visually driven, and their occurrence and intensity were modulated by whether volitional effort was congruent or not with visual signals. These results confirm the impact of volitional effort in kinesthesia and demonstrate for the first time that these signals interact with visual afferents to offer a coherent and unified percept. PMID:24348909

Low-level visual attention and its relation to joint attention in autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Jaworski, Jessica L Bean; Eigsti, Inge-Marie

2017-04-01

Visual attention is integral to social interaction and is a critical building block for development in other domains (e.g., language). Furthermore, atypical attention (especially joint attention) is one of the earliest markers of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study assesses low-level visual attention and its relation to social attentional processing in youth with ASD and typically developing (TD) youth, aged 7 to 18 years. The findings indicate difficulty overriding incorrect attentional cues in ASD, particularly with non-social (arrow) cues relative to social (face) cues. The findings also show reduced competition in ASD from cues that remain on-screen. Furthermore, social attention, autism severity, and age were all predictors of competing cue processing. The results suggest that individuals with ASD may be biased towards speeded rather than accurate responding, and further, that reduced engagement with visual information may impede responses to visual attentional cues. Once attention is engaged, individuals with ASD appear to interpret directional cues as meaningful. These findings from a controlled, experimental paradigm were mirrored in results from an ecologically valid measure of social attention. Attentional difficulties may be exacerbated during the complex and dynamic experience of actual social interaction. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Visual Iconic Patterns of Instant Messaging: Steps Towards Understanding Visual Conversations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bays, Hillary

An Instant Messaging (IM) conversation is a dynamic communication register made up of text, images, animation and sound played out on a screen with potentially several parallel conversations and activities all within a physical environment. This article first examines how best to capture this unique gestalt using in situ recording techniques (video, screen capture, XML logs) which highlight the micro-phenomenal level of the exchange and the macro-social level of the interaction. Of particular interest are smileys first as cultural artifacts in CMC in general then as linguistic markers. A brief taxonomy of these markers is proposed in an attempt to clarify their frequency and patterns of their use. Then, focus is placed on their importance as perceptual cues which facilitate communication, while also serving as emotive and emphatic functional markers. We try to demonstrate that the use of smileys and animation is not arbitrary but an organized interactional and structured practice. Finally, we discuss how the study of visual markers in IM could inform the study of other visual conversation codes, such as sign languages, which also have co-produced, physical behavior, suggesting the possibility of a visual phonology.

Intelligent Visualization of Geo-Information on the Future Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Slusallek, P.; Jochem, R.; Sons, K.; Hoffmann, H.

2012-04-01

Visualization is a key component of the "Observation Web" and will become even more important in the future as geo data becomes more widely accessible. The common statement that "Data that cannot be seen, does not exist" is especially true for non-experts, like most citizens. The Web provides the most interesting platform for making data easily and widely available. However, today's Web is not well suited for the interactive visualization and exploration that is often needed for geo data. Support for 3D data was added only recently and at an extremely low level (WebGL), but even the 2D visualization capabilities of HTML e.g. (images, canvas, SVG) are rather limited, especially regarding interactivity. We have developed XML3D as an extension to HTML-5. It allows for compactly describing 2D and 3D data directly as elements of an HTML-5 document. All graphics elements are part of the Document Object Model (DOM) and can be manipulated via the same set of DOM events and methods that millions of Web developers use on a daily basis. Thus, XML3D makes highly interactive 2D and 3D visualization easily usable, not only for geo data. XML3D is supported by any WebGL-capable browser but we also provide native implementations in Firefox and Chromium. As an example, we show how OpenStreetMap data can be mapped directly to XML3D and visualized interactively in any Web page. We show how this data can be easily augmented with additional data from the Web via a few lines of Javascript. We also show how embedded semantic data (via RDFa) allows for linking the visualization back to the data's origin, thus providing an immersive interface for interacting with and modifying the original data. XML3D is used as key input for standardization within the W3C Community Group on "Declarative 3D for the Web" chaired by the DFKI and has recently been selected as one of the Generic Enabler for the EU Future Internet initiative.

Low cost training aids and devices

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lawver, J.; Lee, A.

1984-01-01

The need for advanced flight simulators for two engine aircraft is discussed. Cost effectiveness is a major requirement. Other training aids available for increased effectiveness are recommended. Training aids include: (1) audio-visual slides; (2) information transfer; (3) programmed instruction; and (4) interactive training systems.

HAGERSTRAND REVISITED: INTERACTIVE SPACE-TIME VISUALIZATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA. (R825173)

EPA Science Inventory

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Concl...

Perception of Graphical Virtual Environments by Blind Users via Sensory Substitution

PubMed Central

Maidenbaum, Shachar; Buchs, Galit; Abboud, Sami; Lavi-Rotbain, Ori; Amedi, Amir

2016-01-01

Graphical virtual environments are currently far from accessible to blind users as their content is mostly visual. This is especially unfortunate as these environments hold great potential for this population for purposes such as safe orientation, education, and entertainment. Previous tools have increased accessibility but there is still a long way to go. Visual-to-audio Sensory-Substitution-Devices (SSDs) can increase accessibility generically by sonifying on-screen content regardless of the specific environment and offer increased accessibility without the use of expensive dedicated peripherals like electrode/vibrator arrays. Using SSDs virtually utilizes similar skills as when using them in the real world, enabling both training on the device and training on environments virtually before real-world visits. This could enable more complex, standardized and autonomous SSD training and new insights into multisensory interaction and the visually-deprived brain. However, whether congenitally blind users, who have never experienced virtual environments, will be able to use this information for successful perception and interaction within them is currently unclear.We tested this using the EyeMusic SSD, which conveys whole-scene visual information, to perform virtual tasks otherwise impossible without vision. Congenitally blind users had to navigate virtual environments and find doors, differentiate between them based on their features (Experiment1:task1) and surroundings (Experiment1:task2) and walk through them; these tasks were accomplished with a 95% and 97% success rate, respectively. We further explored the reactions of congenitally blind users during their first interaction with a more complex virtual environment than in the previous tasks–walking down a virtual street, recognizing different features of houses and trees, navigating to cross-walks, etc. Users reacted enthusiastically and reported feeling immersed within the environment. They highlighted the potential usefulness of such environments for understanding what visual scenes are supposed to look like and their potential for complex training and suggested many future environments they wished to experience. PMID:26882473

Perception of Graphical Virtual Environments by Blind Users via Sensory Substitution.

PubMed

Maidenbaum, Shachar; Buchs, Galit; Abboud, Sami; Lavi-Rotbain, Ori; Amedi, Amir

2016-01-01

Graphical virtual environments are currently far from accessible to blind users as their content is mostly visual. This is especially unfortunate as these environments hold great potential for this population for purposes such as safe orientation, education, and entertainment. Previous tools have increased accessibility but there is still a long way to go. Visual-to-audio Sensory-Substitution-Devices (SSDs) can increase accessibility generically by sonifying on-screen content regardless of the specific environment and offer increased accessibility without the use of expensive dedicated peripherals like electrode/vibrator arrays. Using SSDs virtually utilizes similar skills as when using them in the real world, enabling both training on the device and training on environments virtually before real-world visits. This could enable more complex, standardized and autonomous SSD training and new insights into multisensory interaction and the visually-deprived brain. However, whether congenitally blind users, who have never experienced virtual environments, will be able to use this information for successful perception and interaction within them is currently unclear.We tested this using the EyeMusic SSD, which conveys whole-scene visual information, to perform virtual tasks otherwise impossible without vision. Congenitally blind users had to navigate virtual environments and find doors, differentiate between them based on their features (Experiment1:task1) and surroundings (Experiment1:task2) and walk through them; these tasks were accomplished with a 95% and 97% success rate, respectively. We further explored the reactions of congenitally blind users during their first interaction with a more complex virtual environment than in the previous tasks-walking down a virtual street, recognizing different features of houses and trees, navigating to cross-walks, etc. Users reacted enthusiastically and reported feeling immersed within the environment. They highlighted the potential usefulness of such environments for understanding what visual scenes are supposed to look like and their potential for complex training and suggested many future environments they wished to experience.

A Systematic Review of the Literature on Parenting of Young Children with Visual Impairments and the Adaptions for Video-Feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting (VIPP).

PubMed

van den Broek, Ellen G C; van Eijden, Ans J P M; Overbeek, Mathilde M; Kef, Sabina; Sterkenburg, Paula S; Schuengel, Carlo

2017-01-01

Secure parent-child attachment may help children to overcome the challenges of growing up with a visual or visual-and-intellectual impairment. A large literature exists that provides a blueprint for interventions that promote parental sensitivity and secure attachment. The Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting (VIPP) is based on that blueprint. While it has been adapted to several specific at risk populations, children with visual impairment may require additional adjustments. This study aimed to identify the themes that should be addressed in adapting VIPP and similar interventions. A Delphi-consultation was conducted with 13 professionals in the field of visual impairment to select the themes for relationship-focused intervention. These themes informed a systematic literature search. Interaction, intersubjectivity, joint attention, exploration, play and specific behavior were the themes mentioned in the Delphi-group. Paired with visual impairment or vision disorders, infants or young children (and their parents) the search yielded 74 articles, making the six themes for intervention adaptation more specific and concrete. The rich literature on six visual impairment specific themes was dominated by the themes interaction, intersubjectivity, and joint attention. These themes need to be addressed in adapting intervention programs developed for other populations, such as VIPP which currently focuses on higher order constructs of sensitivity and attachment.

Interactive map communication: pilot study of the visual perceptions and preferences of public health practitioners.

PubMed

Koenig, A; Samarasundera, E; Cheng, T

2011-08-01

To conduct a pilot study into the comprehension and visualisation preferences of geographic information by public health practitioners (PHPs), particularly in the context of interactive, Internet-based atlases. Structured human-computer interaction interviews. Seven academia-based PHPs were interviewed as information service users based on a structured questionnaire to assess their understanding of geographic representations of morbidity data, and identify their visualisation preferences in a geographic information systems environment. Awareness of area-based deprivation indices and the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 health and disability domain was near-universal. However, novice users of disease maps had difficulties in interpreting data classifications, in understanding supplementary information in the form of box plots and histograms, and in making use of links between interactive tabular and cartographic information. Choices for colour plans when viewing maps showed little agreement between users, although pre-viewing comments showed preferences for red-blue diverging schema. PHPs new to geographic information would benefit from enhanced interpretive support documentation to meet their needs when using Internet-based, interactive public health atlases, which are rarely provided at such sites. Technical, software-related support alone is insufficient. Increased interaction between PHPs and mapmakers would be beneficial to maximise the potential of the current growth in interactive, electronic atlases, and improve geographic information support for public health decision-making and informing the wider public. Copyright © 2011 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interactions of information transfer along separable causal paths

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiang, Peishi; Kumar, Praveen

2018-04-01

Complex systems arise as a result of interdependences between multiple variables, whose causal interactions can be visualized in a time-series graph. Transfer entropy and information partitioning approaches have been used to characterize such dependences. However, these approaches capture net information transfer occurring through a multitude of pathways involved in the interaction and as a result mask our ability to discern the causal interaction within a subgraph of interest through specific pathways. We build on recent developments of momentary information transfer along causal paths proposed by Runge [Phys. Rev. E 92, 062829 (2015), 10.1103/PhysRevE.92.062829] to develop a framework for quantifying information partitioning along separable causal paths. Momentary information transfer along causal paths captures the amount of information transfer between any two variables lagged at two specific points in time. Our approach expands this concept to characterize the causal interaction in terms of synergistic, unique, and redundant information transfer through separable causal paths. Through a graphical model, we analyze the impact of the separable and nonseparable causal paths and the causality structure embedded in the graph as well as the noise effect on information partitioning by using synthetic data generated from two coupled logistic equation models. Our approach can provide a valuable reference for an autonomous information partitioning along separable causal paths which form a causal subgraph influencing a target.

Developmental changes in the neural influence of sublexical information on semantic processing.

PubMed

Lee, Shu-Hui; Booth, James R; Chou, Tai-Li

2015-07-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the developmental changes in a group of normally developing children (aged 8-12) and adolescents (aged 13-16) during semantic processing. We manipulated association strength (i.e. a global reading unit) and semantic radical (i.e. a local reading unit) to explore the interaction of lexical and sublexical semantic information in making semantic judgments. In the semantic judgment task, two types of stimuli were used: visually-similar (i.e. shared a semantic radical) versus visually-dissimilar (i.e. did not share a semantic radical) character pairs. Participants were asked to indicate if two Chinese characters, arranged according to association strength, were related in meaning. The results showed greater developmental increases in activation in left angular gyrus (BA 39) in the visually-similar compared to the visually-dissimilar pairs for the strong association. There were also greater age-related increases in angular gyrus for the strong compared to weak association in the visually-similar pairs. Both of these results suggest that shared semantics at the sublexical level facilitates the integration of overlapping features at the lexical level in older children. In addition, there was a larger developmental increase in left posterior middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) for the weak compared to strong association in the visually-dissimilar pairs, suggesting conflicting sublexical information placed greater demands on access to lexical representations in the older children. All together, these results suggest that older children are more sensitive to sublexical information when processing lexical representations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Designing a visualization system for hydrological data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fuhrmann, Sven

2000-02-01

The field of hydrology is, as any other scientific field, strongly affected by a massive technological evolution. The spread of modern information and communication technology within the last three decades has led to an increased collection, availability and use of spatial and temporal digital hydrological data. In a two-year research period a working group in Muenster applied and developed methods for the visualization of digital hydrological data and the documentation of hydrological models. A low-cost multimedial, hydrological visualization system (HydroVIS) for the Weser river catchment was developed. The research group designed HydroVIS under freeware constraints and tried to show what kind of multimedia visualization techniques can be effectively used with a nonprofit hydrological visualization system. The system's visual components include features such as electronic maps, temporal and nontemporal cartographic animations, the display of geologic profiles, interactive diagrams and hypertext, including photographs and tables.

Real-Time Aerodynamic Flow and Data Visualization in an Interactive Virtual Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schwartz, Richard J.; Fleming, Gary A.

2005-01-01

Significant advances have been made to non-intrusive flow field diagnostics in the past decade. Camera based techniques are now capable of determining physical qualities such as surface deformation, surface pressure and temperature, flow velocities, and molecular species concentration. In each case, extracting the pertinent information from the large volume of acquired data requires powerful and efficient data visualization tools. The additional requirement for real time visualization is fueled by an increased emphasis on minimizing test time in expensive facilities. This paper will address a capability titled LiveView3D, which is the first step in the development phase of an in depth, real time data visualization and analysis tool for use in aerospace testing facilities.

A Visual Analytics Approach to Structured Data Analysis to Enhance Nonproliferation and Arms Control Verification Activities

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gillen, David S.

Analysis activities for Nonproliferation and Arms Control verification require the use of many types of data. Tabular structured data, such as Excel spreadsheets and relational databases, have traditionally been used for data mining activities, where specific queries are issued against data to look for matching results. The application of visual analytics tools to structured data enables further exploration of datasets to promote discovery of previously unknown results. This paper discusses the application of a specific visual analytics tool to datasets related to the field of Arms Control and Nonproliferation to promote the use of visual analytics more broadly in thismore » domain. Visual analytics focuses on analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces (Wong and Thomas 2004). It promotes exploratory analysis of data, and complements data mining technologies where known patterns can be mined for. Also with a human in the loop, they can bring in domain knowledge and subject matter expertise. Visual analytics has not widely been applied to this domain. In this paper, we will focus on one type of data: structured data, and show the results of applying a specific visual analytics tool to answer questions in the Arms Control and Nonproliferation domain. We chose to use the T.Rex tool, a visual analytics tool developed at PNNL, which uses a variety of visual exploration patterns to discover relationships in structured datasets, including a facet view, graph view, matrix view, and timeline view. The facet view enables discovery of relationships between categorical information, such as countries and locations. The graph tool visualizes node-link relationship patterns, such as the flow of materials being shipped between parties. The matrix visualization shows highly correlated categories of information. The timeline view shows temporal patterns in data. In this paper, we will use T.Rex with two different datasets to demonstrate how interactive exploration of the data can aid an analyst with arms control and nonproliferation verification activities. Using a dataset from PIERS (PIERS 2014), we will show how container shipment imports and exports can aid an analyst in understanding the shipping patterns between two countries. We will also use T.Rex to examine a collection of research publications from the IAEA International Nuclear Information System (IAEA 2014) to discover collaborations of concern. We hope this paper will encourage the use of visual analytics structured data analytics in the field of nonproliferation and arms control verification. Our paper outlines some of the challenges that exist before broad adoption of these kinds of tools can occur and offers next steps to overcome these challenges.« less

Adapting the iSNOBAL model for improved visualization in a GIS environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johansen, W. J.; Delparte, D.

2014-12-01

Snowmelt is a primary means of crucial water resources in much of the western United States. Researchers are developing models that estimate snowmelt to aid in water resource management. One such model is the image snowcover energy and mass balance (iSNOBAL) model. It uses input climate grids to simulate the development and melting of snowpack in mountainous regions. This study looks at applying this model to the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in southwestern Idaho, utilizing novel approaches incorporating geographic information systems (GIS). To improve visualization of the iSNOBAL model, we have adapted it to run in a GIS environment. This type of environment is suited to both the input grid creation and the visualization of results. The data used for input grid creation can be stored locally or on a web-server. Kriging interpolation embedded within Python scripts are used to create air temperature, soil temperature, humidity, and precipitation grids, while built-in GIS and existing tools are used to create solar radiation and wind grids. Additional Python scripting is then used to perform model calculations. The final product is a user-friendly and accessible version of the iSNOBAL model, including the ability to easily visualize and interact with model results, all within a web- or desktop-based GIS environment. This environment allows for interactive manipulation of model parameters and visualization of the resulting input grids for the model calculations. Future work is moving towards adapting the model further for use in a 3D gaming engine for improved visualization and interaction.

Feature diagnosticity and task context shape activity in human scene-selective cortex.

PubMed

Lowe, Matthew X; Gallivan, Jason P; Ferber, Susanne; Cant, Jonathan S

2016-01-15

Scenes are constructed from multiple visual features, yet previous research investigating scene processing has often focused on the contributions of single features in isolation. In the real world, features rarely exist independently of one another and likely converge to inform scene identity in unique ways. Here, we utilize fMRI and pattern classification techniques to examine the interactions between task context (i.e., attend to diagnostic global scene features; texture or layout) and high-level scene attributes (content and spatial boundary) to test the novel hypothesis that scene-selective cortex represents multiple visual features, the importance of which varies according to their diagnostic relevance across scene categories and task demands. Our results show for the first time that scene representations are driven by interactions between multiple visual features and high-level scene attributes. Specifically, univariate analysis of scene-selective cortex revealed that task context and feature diagnosticity shape activity differentially across scene categories. Examination using multivariate decoding methods revealed results consistent with univariate findings, but also evidence for an interaction between high-level scene attributes and diagnostic visual features within scene categories. Critically, these findings suggest visual feature representations are not distributed uniformly across scene categories but are shaped by task context and feature diagnosticity. Thus, we propose that scene-selective cortex constructs a flexible representation of the environment by integrating multiple diagnostically relevant visual features, the nature of which varies according to the particular scene being perceived and the goals of the observer. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

MindSeer: a portable and extensible tool for visualization of structural and functional neuroimaging data

PubMed Central

Moore, Eider B; Poliakov, Andrew V; Lincoln, Peter; Brinkley, James F

2007-01-01

Background Three-dimensional (3-D) visualization of multimodality neuroimaging data provides a powerful technique for viewing the relationship between structure and function. A number of applications are available that include some aspect of 3-D visualization, including both free and commercial products. These applications range from highly specific programs for a single modality, to general purpose toolkits that include many image processing functions in addition to visualization. However, few if any of these combine both stand-alone and remote multi-modality visualization in an open source, portable and extensible tool that is easy to install and use, yet can be included as a component of a larger information system. Results We have developed a new open source multimodality 3-D visualization application, called MindSeer, that has these features: integrated and interactive 3-D volume and surface visualization, Java and Java3D for true cross-platform portability, one-click installation and startup, integrated data management to help organize large studies, extensibility through plugins, transparent remote visualization, and the ability to be integrated into larger information management systems. We describe the design and implementation of the system, as well as several case studies that demonstrate its utility. These case studies are available as tutorials or demos on the associated website: . Conclusion MindSeer provides a powerful visualization tool for multimodality neuroimaging data. Its architecture and unique features also allow it to be extended into other visualization domains within biomedicine. PMID:17937818

MindSeer: a portable and extensible tool for visualization of structural and functional neuroimaging data.

PubMed

Moore, Eider B; Poliakov, Andrew V; Lincoln, Peter; Brinkley, James F

2007-10-15

Three-dimensional (3-D) visualization of multimodality neuroimaging data provides a powerful technique for viewing the relationship between structure and function. A number of applications are available that include some aspect of 3-D visualization, including both free and commercial products. These applications range from highly specific programs for a single modality, to general purpose toolkits that include many image processing functions in addition to visualization. However, few if any of these combine both stand-alone and remote multi-modality visualization in an open source, portable and extensible tool that is easy to install and use, yet can be included as a component of a larger information system. We have developed a new open source multimodality 3-D visualization application, called MindSeer, that has these features: integrated and interactive 3-D volume and surface visualization, Java and Java3D for true cross-platform portability, one-click installation and startup, integrated data management to help organize large studies, extensibility through plugins, transparent remote visualization, and the ability to be integrated into larger information management systems. We describe the design and implementation of the system, as well as several case studies that demonstrate its utility. These case studies are available as tutorials or demos on the associated website: http://sig.biostr.washington.edu/projects/MindSeer. MindSeer provides a powerful visualization tool for multimodality neuroimaging data. Its architecture and unique features also allow it to be extended into other visualization domains within biomedicine.

Supporting students' knowledge integration with technology-enhanced inquiry curricula

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chiu, Jennifer Lopseen

Dynamic visualizations of scientific phenomena have the potential to transform how students learn and understand science. Dynamic visualizations enable interaction and experimentation with unobservable atomic-level phenomena. A series of studies clarify the conditions under which embedding dynamic visualizations in technology-enhanced inquiry instruction can help students develop robust and durable chemistry knowledge. Using the knowledge integration perspective, I designed Chemical Reactions, a technology-enhanced curriculum unit, with a partnership of teachers, educational researchers, and chemists. This unit guides students in an exploration of how energy and chemical reactions relate to climate change. It uses powerful dynamic visualizations to connect atomic level interactions to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. The series of studies were conducted in typical classrooms in eleven high schools across the country. This dissertation describes four studies that contribute to understanding of how visualizations can be used to transform chemistry learning. The efficacy study investigated the impact of the Chemical Reactions unit compared to traditional instruction using pre-, post- and delayed posttest assessments. The self-monitoring study used self-ratings in combination with embedded assessments to explore how explanation prompts help students learn from dynamic visualizations. The self-regulation study used log files of students' interactions with the learning environment to investigate how external feedback and explanation prompts influence students' exploration of dynamic visualizations. The explanation study compared specific and general explanation prompts to explore the processes by which explanations benefit learning with dynamic visualizations. These studies delineate the conditions under which dynamic visualizations embedded in inquiry instruction can enhance student outcomes. The studies reveal that visualizations can be deceptively clear, deterring learners from exploring details. Asking students to generate explanations helps them realize what they don't understand and can spur students to revisit visualizations to remedy gaps in their knowledge. The studies demonstrate that science instruction focused on complex topics can succeed by combining visualizations with generative activities to encourage knowledge integration. Students are more successful at monitoring their progress and remedying gaps in knowledge when required to distinguish among alternative explanations. The results inform the design of technology-enhanced science instruction for typical classrooms.

HS3 Information System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maskey, M.; Conover, H.; Ramachandran, R.; Kulkarni, A.; Mceniry, M.; Stone, B.

2015-12-01

The Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC) is developing an enterprise information system to manage and better serve data for Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3), a NASA airborne field campaign. HS3 is a multiyear campaign aimed at helping scientists understand the physical processes that contribute to hurricane intensification. For in-depth analysis, HS3 encompasses not only airborne data but also variety of in-situ, satellite, simulation, and flight report data. Thus, HS3 provides a unique challenge in information system design. The GHRC team is experienced with previous airborne campaigns to handle such challenge. Many supplementary information and reports collected during the mission include information rich contents that provide mission snapshots. In particular, flight information, instrument status, weather reports, and summary statistics offer vital knowledge about the corresponding science data. Furthermore, such information help narrow the science data of interest. Therefore, the GHRC team is building HS3 information system that augments the current GHRC data management framework to support search and discover of airborne science data with interactive visual exploration. Specifically, the HS3 information system is developing a tool to visually playback mission flights along with other traditional search and discover interfaces. This playback capability allows the users to follow the flight in time and visualize collected data. The flight summary and analyzed information are also presented during the playback. If the observed data is of interest, then they can order the data from GHRC using the interface. The users will be able to order just the data for the part of the flight that they are interested in. This presentation will demonstrate use of visual exploration to data download along with other components that comprise the HS3 information system.

USL NASA/RECON project presentations at the 1985 ACM Computer Science Conference: Abstracts and visuals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dominick, Wayne D. (Editor); Chum, Frank Y.; Gallagher, Suzy; Granier, Martin; Hall, Philip P.; Moreau, Dennis R.; Triantafyllopoulos, Spiros

1985-01-01

This Working Paper Series entry represents the abstracts and visuals associated with presentations delivered by six USL NASA/RECON research team members at the above named conference. The presentations highlight various aspects of NASA contract activities pursued by the participants as they relate to individual research projects. The titles of the six presentations are as follows: (1) The Specification and Design of a Distributed Workstation; (2) An Innovative, Multidisciplinary Educational Program in Interactive Information Storage and Retrieval; (3) Critical Comparative Analysis of the Major Commercial IS and R Systems; (4) Design Criteria for a PC-Based Common User Interface to Remote Information Systems; (5) The Design of an Object-Oriented Graphics Interface; and (6) Knowledge-Based Information Retrieval: Techniques and Applications.

Multiperson visual focus of attention from head pose and meeting contextual cues.

PubMed

Ba, Sileye O; Odobez, Jean-Marc

2011-01-01

This paper introduces a novel contextual model for the recognition of people's visual focus of attention (VFOA) in meetings from audio-visual perceptual cues. More specifically, instead of independently recognizing the VFOA of each meeting participant from his own head pose, we propose to jointly recognize the participants' visual attention in order to introduce context-dependent interaction models that relate to group activity and the social dynamics of communication. Meeting contextual information is represented by the location of people, conversational events identifying floor holding patterns, and a presentation activity variable. By modeling the interactions between the different contexts and their combined and sometimes contradictory impact on the gazing behavior, our model allows us to handle VFOA recognition in difficult task-based meetings involving artifacts, presentations, and moving people. We validated our model through rigorous evaluation on a publicly available and challenging data set of 12 real meetings (5 hours of data). The results demonstrated that the integration of the presentation and conversation dynamical context using our model can lead to significant performance improvements.

SensorDB: a virtual laboratory for the integration, visualization and analysis of varied biological sensor data.

PubMed

Salehi, Ali; Jimenez-Berni, Jose; Deery, David M; Palmer, Doug; Holland, Edward; Rozas-Larraondo, Pablo; Chapman, Scott C; Georgakopoulos, Dimitrios; Furbank, Robert T

2015-01-01

To our knowledge, there is no software or database solution that supports large volumes of biological time series sensor data efficiently and enables data visualization and analysis in real time. Existing solutions for managing data typically use unstructured file systems or relational databases. These systems are not designed to provide instantaneous response to user queries. Furthermore, they do not support rapid data analysis and visualization to enable interactive experiments. In large scale experiments, this behaviour slows research discovery, discourages the widespread sharing and reuse of data that could otherwise inform critical decisions in a timely manner and encourage effective collaboration between groups. In this paper we present SensorDB, a web based virtual laboratory that can manage large volumes of biological time series sensor data while supporting rapid data queries and real-time user interaction. SensorDB is sensor agnostic and uses web-based, state-of-the-art cloud and storage technologies to efficiently gather, analyse and visualize data. Collaboration and data sharing between different agencies and groups is thereby facilitated. SensorDB is available online at http://sensordb.csiro.au.

Human visual performance model for crewstation design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Larimer, James; Prevost, Michael; Arditi, Aries; Azueta, Steven; Bergen, James; Lubin, Jeffrey

1991-01-01

An account is given of a Visibility Modeling Tool (VMT) which furnishes a crew-station designer with the means to assess configurational tradeoffs, with a view to the impact of various options on the unambiguous access of information to the pilot. The interactive interface of the VMT allows the manipulation of cockpit geometry, ambient lighting, pilot ergonomics, and the displayed symbology. Performance data can be displayed in the form of 3D contours into the crewstation graphic model, thereby yielding an indication of the operator's visual capabilities.

Visual force feedback in laparoscopic training.

PubMed

Horeman, Tim; Rodrigues, Sharon P; van den Dobbelsteen, John J; Jansen, Frank-Willem; Dankelman, Jenny

2012-01-01

To improve endoscopic surgical skills, an increasing number of surgical residents practice on box or virtual reality (VR) trainers. Current training is focused mainly on hand-eye coordination. Training methods that focus on applying the right amount of force are not yet available. The aim of this project is to develop a low-cost training system that measures the interaction force between tissue and instruments and displays a visual representation of the applied forces inside the camera image. This visual representation continuously informs the subject about the magnitude and the direction of applied forces. To show the potential of the developed training system, a pilot study was conducted in which six novices performed a needle-driving task in a box trainer with visual feedback of the force, and six novices performed the same task without visual feedback of the force. All subjects performed the training task five times and were subsequently tested in a post-test without visual feedback. The subjects who received visual feedback during training exerted on average 1.3 N (STD 0.6 N) to drive the needle through the tissue during the post-test. This value was considerably higher for the group that received no feedback (2.6 N, STD 0.9 N). The maximum interaction force during the post-test was noticeably lower for the feedback group (4.1 N, STD 1.1 N) compared with that of the control group (8.0 N, STD 3.3 N). The force-sensing training system provides us with the unique possibility to objectively assess tissue-handling skills in a laboratory setting. The real-time visualization of applied forces during training may facilitate acquisition of tissue-handling skills in complex laparoscopic tasks and could stimulate proficiency gain curves of trainees. However, larger randomized trials that also include other tasks are necessary to determine whether training with visual feedback about forces reduces the interaction force during laparoscopic surgery.

The Spinel Explorer--Interactive Visual Analysis of Spinel Group Minerals.

PubMed

Luján Ganuza, María; Ferracutti, Gabriela; Gargiulo, María Florencia; Castro, Silvia Mabel; Bjerg, Ernesto; Gröller, Eduard; Matković, Krešimir

2014-12-01

Geologists usually deal with rocks that are up to several thousand million years old. They try to reconstruct the tectonic settings where these rocks were formed and the history of events that affected them through the geological time. The spinel group minerals provide useful information regarding the geological environment in which the host rocks were formed. They constitute excellent indicators of geological environments (tectonic settings) and are of invaluable help in the search for mineral deposits of economic interest. The current workflow requires the scientists to work with different applications to analyze spine data. They do use specific diagrams, but these are usually not interactive. The current workflow hinders domain experts to fully exploit the potentials of tediously and expensively collected data. In this paper, we introduce the Spinel Explorer-an interactive visual analysis application for spinel group minerals. The design of the Spinel Explorer and of the newly introduced interactions is a result of a careful study of geologists' tasks. The Spinel Explorer includes most of the diagrams commonly used for analyzing spinel group minerals, including 2D binary plots, ternary plots, and 3D Spinel prism plots. Besides specific plots, conventional information visualization views are also integrated in the Spinel Explorer. All views are interactive and linked. The Spinel Explorer supports conventional statistics commonly used in spinel minerals exploration. The statistics views and different data derivation techniques are fully integrated in the system. Besides the Spinel Explorer as newly proposed interactive exploration system, we also describe the identified analysis tasks, and propose a new workflow. We evaluate the Spinel Explorer using real-life data from two locations in Argentina: the Frontal Cordillera in Central Andes and Patagonia. We describe the new findings of the geologists which would have been much more difficult to achieve using the current workflow only. Very positive feedback from geologists confirms the usefulness of the Spinel Explorer.

Measurement Tools for the Immersive Visualization Environment: Steps Toward the Virtual Laboratory.

PubMed

Hagedorn, John G; Dunkers, Joy P; Satterfield, Steven G; Peskin, Adele P; Kelso, John T; Terrill, Judith E

2007-01-01

This paper describes a set of tools for performing measurements of objects in a virtual reality based immersive visualization environment. These tools enable the use of the immersive environment as an instrument for extracting quantitative information from data representations that hitherto had be used solely for qualitative examination. We provide, within the virtual environment, ways for the user to analyze and interact with the quantitative data generated. We describe results generated by these methods to obtain dimensional descriptors of tissue engineered medical products. We regard this toolbox as our first step in the implementation of a virtual measurement laboratory within an immersive visualization environment.

Interactive Visualizations of Complex Seismic Data and Models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chai, C.; Ammon, C. J.; Maceira, M.; Herrmann, R. B.

2016-12-01

The volume and complexity of seismic data and models have increased dramatically thanks to dense seismic station deployments and advances in data modeling and processing. Seismic observations such as receiver functions and surface-wave dispersion are multidimensional: latitude, longitude, time, amplitude and latitude, longitude, period, and velocity. Three-dimensional seismic velocity models are characterized with three spatial dimensions and one additional dimension for the speed. In these circumstances, exploring the data and models and assessing the data fits is a challenge. A few professional packages are available to visualize these complex data and models. However, most of these packages rely on expensive commercial software or require a substantial time investment to master, and even when that effort is complete, communicating the results to others remains a problem. A traditional approach during the model interpretation stage is to examine data fits and model features using a large number of static displays. Publications include a few key slices or cross-sections of these high-dimensional data, but this prevents others from directly exploring the model and corresponding data fits. In this presentation, we share interactive visualization examples of complex seismic data and models that are based on open-source tools and are easy to implement. Model and data are linked in an intuitive and informative web-browser based display that can be used to explore the model and the features in the data that influence various aspects of the model. We encode the model and data into HTML files and present high-dimensional information using two approaches. The first uses a Python package to pack both data and interactive plots in a single file. The second approach uses JavaScript, CSS, and HTML to build a dynamic webpage for seismic data visualization. The tools have proven useful and led to deeper insight into 3D seismic models and the data that were used to construct them. Such easy-to-use interactive displays are essential in teaching environments - user-friendly interactivity allows students to explore large, complex data sets and models at their own pace, enabling a more accessible learning experience.

The Diverse Data, User Driven Services and the Power of Giovanni at NASA GES DISC

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shen, Suhung

2017-01-01

This presentation provides an overview of remote sensing and model data at GES (Goddard Earth Sciences) DISC (Data and Information Services Center); Overview of data services at GES DISC (Registration with NASA data system; Searching and downloading data); Giovanni (Geospatial Interactive Online VisualizationANd aNalysis Infrastructure): online data exploration tool; and NASA Earth Data and Information System.

A knowledge based system for scientific data visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Senay, Hikmet; Ignatius, Eve

1992-01-01

A knowledge-based system, called visualization tool assistant (VISTA), which was developed to assist scientists in the design of scientific data visualization techniques, is described. The system derives its knowledge from several sources which provide information about data characteristics, visualization primitives, and effective visual perception. The design methodology employed by the system is based on a sequence of transformations which decomposes a data set into a set of data partitions, maps this set of partitions to visualization primitives, and combines these primitives into a composite visualization technique design. Although the primary function of the system is to generate an effective visualization technique design for a given data set by using principles of visual perception the system also allows users to interactively modify the design, and renders the resulting image using a variety of rendering algorithms. The current version of the system primarily supports visualization techniques having applicability in earth and space sciences, although it may easily be extended to include other techniques useful in other disciplines such as computational fluid dynamics, finite-element analysis and medical imaging.

Human microbiome visualization using 3D technology.

PubMed

Moore, Jason H; Lari, Richard Cowper Sal; Hill, Douglas; Hibberd, Patricia L; Madan, Juliette C

2011-01-01

High-throughput sequencing technology has opened the door to the study of the human microbiome and its relationship with health and disease. This is both an opportunity and a significant biocomputing challenge. We present here a 3D visualization methodology and freely-available software package for facilitating the exploration and analysis of high-dimensional human microbiome data. Our visualization approach harnesses the power of commercial video game development engines to provide an interactive medium in the form of a 3D heat map for exploration of microbial species and their relative abundance in different patients. The advantage of this approach is that the third dimension provides additional layers of information that cannot be visualized using a traditional 2D heat map. We demonstrate the usefulness of this visualization approach using microbiome data collected from a sample of premature babies with and without sepsis.

High-frequency neural oscillations and visual processing deficits in schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Tan, Heng-Ru May; Lana, Luiz; Uhlhaas, Peter J.

2013-01-01

Visual information is fundamental to how we understand our environment, make predictions, and interact with others. Recent research has underscored the importance of visuo-perceptual dysfunctions for cognitive deficits and pathophysiological processes in schizophrenia. In the current paper, we review evidence for the relevance of high frequency (beta/gamma) oscillations towards visuo-perceptual dysfunctions in schizophrenia. In the first part of the paper, we examine the relationship between beta/gamma band oscillations and visual processing during normal brain functioning. We then summarize EEG/MEG-studies which demonstrate reduced amplitude and synchrony of high-frequency activity during visual stimulation in schizophrenia. In the final part of the paper, we identify neurobiological correlates as well as offer perspectives for future research to stimulate further inquiry into the role of high-frequency oscillations in visual processing impairments in the disorder. PMID:24130535

Multimedia Information Retrieval Literature Review

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wong, Pak C.; Bohn, Shawn J.; Payne, Deborah A.

This survey paper highlights some of the recent, influential work in multimedia information retrieval (MIR). MIR is a branch area of multimedia (MM). The young and fast-growing area has received strong industrial and academic support in the United States and around the world (see Section 7 for a list of major conferences and journals of the community). The term "information retrieval" may be misleading to those with different computer science or information technology backgrounds. As shown in our discussion later, it indeed includes topics from user interaction, data analytics, machine learning, feature extraction, information visualization, and more.

The "social" and "interpersonal" body in spatial cognition. The role of agency and interagency.

PubMed

Crivelli, Davide; Balconi, Michela

2015-09-01

In order to interact effectively, we need to represent our action as produced by human beings. According to direct access theories, the first steps of visual information processing offer us an informed direct grasp of the situation, especially when social and interpersonal components are implicated. Biological system detection may be the gateway of such smart processes and then may influence initial stages of perception fostering adaptive social behaviour. To investigate early neural correlates of human agency detection in ecological situations with more high or low social impact, we compared scenes showing a human versus artificial agent interacting with a human agent. Twenty volunteers participated in the study. They were asked to observe dynamic visual stimuli showing realistic interactions. ERP (event-related potentials) were recorded. Each stimulus depicted an arm executing a gesture addressed to a human agent. Visual features of the arm were manipulated: in half of trials, it was real; in other trials, it was deprived of some details and transformed in a statue-like arm. EEG morphological analysis revealed an early negative deflection peaking at about 155 ms. Peak amplitude data have been statistically analysed by repeated-measures ANOVAs. It was found that the peak was ampler in the left inferior posterior region when the gesturing arm was human. The early negative deflection, N150, which we found to be different between the human and artificial conditions, is presumably associated with human agency detection in high interpersonal context.

Knowledge Visualization for Self-Regulated Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Minhong; Peng, Jun; Cheng, Bo; Zhou, Hance; Liu, Jie

2011-01-01

The Web allows self-regulated learning through interaction with large amounts of learning resources. While enjoying the flexibility of learning, learners may suffer from cognitive overload and conceptual and navigational disorientation when faced with various information resources under disparate topics and complex knowledge structures. This study…

Audio in Courseware: Design Knowledge Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aarntzen, Diana

1993-01-01

Considers issues that need to be addressed when incorporating audio in courseware design. Topics discussed include functions of audio in courseware; the relationship between auditive and visual information; learner characteristics in relation to audio; events of instruction; and audio characteristics, including interactivity and speech technology.…

Making Information Overload Work: The Dragon Software System on a Virtual Reality Responsive Workbench

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-03-01

Research Laboratory’s Virtual Reality Responsive Workbench (VRRWB) and Dragon software system which together address the problem of battle space...and describe the lessons which have been learned. Interactive graphics, workbench, battle space visualization, virtual reality , user interface.

Learning Dashboards

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Charleer, Sven; Klerkx, Joris; Duval, Erik

2014-01-01

This article explores how information visualization techniques can be applied to learning analytics data to help teachers and students deal with the abundance of learner traces. We also investigate how the affordances of large interactive surfaces can facilitate a collaborative sense-making environment for multiple students and teachers to explore…

QuIN: A Web Server for Querying and Visualizing Chromatin Interaction Networks

PubMed Central

Thibodeau, Asa; Márquez, Eladio J.; Luo, Oscar; Ruan, Yijun; Shin, Dong-Guk; Stitzel, Michael L.; Ucar, Duygu

2016-01-01

Recent studies of the human genome have indicated that regulatory elements (e.g. promoters and enhancers) at distal genomic locations can interact with each other via chromatin folding and affect gene expression levels. Genomic technologies for mapping interactions between DNA regions, e.g., ChIA-PET and HiC, can generate genome-wide maps of interactions between regulatory elements. These interaction datasets are important resources to infer distal gene targets of non-coding regulatory elements and to facilitate prioritization of critical loci for important cellular functions. With the increasing diversity and complexity of genomic information and public ontologies, making sense of these datasets demands integrative and easy-to-use software tools. Moreover, network representation of chromatin interaction maps enables effective data visualization, integration, and mining. Currently, there is no software that can take full advantage of network theory approaches for the analysis of chromatin interaction datasets. To fill this gap, we developed a web-based application, QuIN, which enables: 1) building and visualizing chromatin interaction networks, 2) annotating networks with user-provided private and publicly available functional genomics and interaction datasets, 3) querying network components based on gene name or chromosome location, and 4) utilizing network based measures to identify and prioritize critical regulatory targets and their direct and indirect interactions. AVAILABILITY: QuIN’s web server is available at http://quin.jax.org QuIN is developed in Java and JavaScript, utilizing an Apache Tomcat web server and MySQL database and the source code is available under the GPLV3 license available on GitHub: https://github.com/UcarLab/QuIN/. PMID:27336171

MSAViewer: interactive JavaScript visualization of multiple sequence alignments.

PubMed

Yachdav, Guy; Wilzbach, Sebastian; Rauscher, Benedikt; Sheridan, Robert; Sillitoe, Ian; Procter, James; Lewis, Suzanna E; Rost, Burkhard; Goldberg, Tatyana

2016-11-15

The MSAViewer is a quick and easy visualization and analysis JavaScript component for Multiple Sequence Alignment data of any size. Core features include interactive navigation through the alignment, application of popular color schemes, sorting, selecting and filtering. The MSAViewer is 'web ready': written entirely in JavaScript, compatible with modern web browsers and does not require any specialized software. The MSAViewer is part of the BioJS collection of components. The MSAViewer is released as open source software under the Boost Software License 1.0. Documentation, source code and the viewer are available at http://msa.biojs.net/Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. msa@bio.sh. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

MSAViewer: interactive JavaScript visualization of multiple sequence alignments

PubMed Central

Yachdav, Guy; Wilzbach, Sebastian; Rauscher, Benedikt; Sheridan, Robert; Sillitoe, Ian; Procter, James; Lewis, Suzanna E.; Rost, Burkhard; Goldberg, Tatyana

2016-01-01

Summary: The MSAViewer is a quick and easy visualization and analysis JavaScript component for Multiple Sequence Alignment data of any size. Core features include interactive navigation through the alignment, application of popular color schemes, sorting, selecting and filtering. The MSAViewer is ‘web ready’: written entirely in JavaScript, compatible with modern web browsers and does not require any specialized software. The MSAViewer is part of the BioJS collection of components. Availability and Implementation: The MSAViewer is released as open source software under the Boost Software License 1.0. Documentation, source code and the viewer are available at http://msa.biojs.net/. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. Contact: msa@bio.sh PMID:27412096

Body posture differentially impacts on visual attention towards tool, graspable, and non-graspable objects.

PubMed

Ambrosini, Ettore; Costantini, Marcello

2017-02-01

Viewed objects have been shown to afford suitable actions, even in the absence of any intention to act. However, little is known as to whether gaze behavior (i.e., the way we simply look at objects) is sensitive to action afforded by the seen object and how our actual motor possibilities affect this behavior. We recorded participants' eye movements during the observation of tools, graspable and ungraspable objects, while their hands were either freely resting on the table or tied behind their back. The effects of the observed object and hand posture on gaze behavior were measured by comparing the actual fixation distribution with that predicted by 2 widely supported models of visual attention, namely the Graph-Based Visual Saliency and the Adaptive Whitening Salience models. Results showed that saliency models did not accurately predict participants' fixation distributions for tools. Indeed, participants mostly fixated the action-related, functional part of the tools, regardless of its visual saliency. Critically, the restriction of the participants' action possibility led to a significant reduction of this effect and significantly improved the model prediction of the participants' gaze behavior. We suggest, first, that action-relevant object information at least in part guides gaze behavior. Second, postural information interacts with visual information to the generation of priority maps of fixation behavior. We support the view that the kind of information we access from the environment is constrained by our readiness to act. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Task-relevant information is prioritized in spatiotemporal contextual cueing.

PubMed

Higuchi, Yoko; Ueda, Yoshiyuki; Ogawa, Hirokazu; Saiki, Jun

2016-11-01

Implicit learning of visual contexts facilitates search performance-a phenomenon known as contextual cueing; however, little is known about contextual cueing under situations in which multidimensional regularities exist simultaneously. In everyday vision, different information, such as object identity and location, appears simultaneously and interacts with each other. We tested the hypothesis that, in contextual cueing, when multiple regularities are present, the regularities that are most relevant to our behavioral goals would be prioritized. Previous studies of contextual cueing have commonly used the visual search paradigm. However, this paradigm is not suitable for directing participants' attention to a particular regularity. Therefore, we developed a new paradigm, the "spatiotemporal contextual cueing paradigm," and manipulated task-relevant and task-irrelevant regularities. In four experiments, we demonstrated that task-relevant regularities were more responsible for search facilitation than task-irrelevant regularities. This finding suggests our visual behavior is focused on regularities that are relevant to our current goal.

Drowning in Data: Going Beyond Traditional Data Archival to Educate Data Users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weigel, A. M.; Smith, T.; Smith, D. K.; Bugbee, K.; Sinclair, L.

2017-12-01

Increasing quantities of Earth science data and information prove overwhelming to new and unfamiliar users. Data discovery and use challenges faced by these users are compounded with atmospheric science field campaign data collected by a variety of instruments and stored, visualized, processed and analyzed in different ways. To address data and user needs assessed through annual surveys and user questions, the NASA Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GHRC DAAC), in collaboration with a graphic designer, has developed a series of resources to help users learn about GHRC science focus areas, field campaigns, instruments, data, and data processing techniques. In this talk, GHRC data recipes, micro articles, interactive data visualization techniques, and artistic science outreach and education efforts, such as ESRI story maps and research as art, will be overviewed. The objective of this talk is to stress the importance artistic information visualization has in communicating with and educating Earth science data users.

Visual analytics as a translational cognitive science.

PubMed

Fisher, Brian; Green, Tera Marie; Arias-Hernández, Richard

2011-07-01

Visual analytics is a new interdisciplinary field of study that calls for a more structured scientific approach to understanding the effects of interaction with complex graphical displays on human cognitive processes. Its primary goal is to support the design and evaluation of graphical information systems that better support cognitive processes in areas as diverse as scientific research and emergency management. The methodologies that make up this new field are as yet ill defined. This paper proposes a pathway for development of visual analytics as a translational cognitive science that bridges fundamental research in human/computer cognitive systems and design and evaluation of information systems in situ. Achieving this goal will require the development of enhanced field methods for conceptual decomposition of human/computer cognitive systems that maps onto laboratory studies, and improved methods for conducting laboratory investigations that might better map onto real-world cognitive processes in technology-rich environments. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Languages on the screen: is film comprehension related to the viewers' fluency level and to the language in the subtitles?

PubMed

Lavaur, Jean-Marc; Bairstow, Dominique

2011-12-01

This research aimed at studying the role of subtitling in film comprehension. It focused on the languages in which the subtitles are written and on the participants' fluency levels in the languages presented in the film. In a preliminary part of the study, the most salient visual and dialogue elements of a short sequence of an English film were extracted by the means of a free recall task after showing two versions of the film (first a silent, then a dubbed-into-French version) to native French speakers. This visual and dialogue information was used in the setting of a questionnaire concerning the understanding of the film presented in the main part of the study, in which other French native speakers with beginner, intermediate, or advanced fluency levels in English were shown one of three versions of the film used in the preliminary part. Respectively, these versions had no subtitles or they included either English or French subtitles. The results indicate a global interaction between all three factors in this study: For the beginners, visual processing dropped from the version without subtitles to that with English subtitles, and even more so if French subtitles were provided, whereas the effect of film version on dialogue comprehension was the reverse. The advanced participants achieved higher comprehension for both types of information with the version without subtitles, and dialogue information processing was always better than visual information processing. The intermediate group similarly processed dialogues in a better way than visual information, but was not affected by film version. These results imply that, depending on the viewers' fluency levels, the language of subtitles can have different effects on movie information processing.

VESPA: software to facilitate genomic annotation of prokaryotic organisms through integration of proteomic and transcriptomic data.

PubMed

Peterson, Elena S; McCue, Lee Ann; Schrimpe-Rutledge, Alexandra C; Jensen, Jeffrey L; Walker, Hyunjoo; Kobold, Markus A; Webb, Samantha R; Payne, Samuel H; Ansong, Charles; Adkins, Joshua N; Cannon, William R; Webb-Robertson, Bobbie-Jo M

2012-04-05

The procedural aspects of genome sequencing and assembly have become relatively inexpensive, yet the full, accurate structural annotation of these genomes remains a challenge. Next-generation sequencing transcriptomics (RNA-Seq), global microarrays, and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)-based proteomics have demonstrated immense value to genome curators as individual sources of information, however, integrating these data types to validate and improve structural annotation remains a major challenge. Current visual and statistical analytic tools are focused on a single data type, or existing software tools are retrofitted to analyze new data forms. We present Visual Exploration and Statistics to Promote Annotation (VESPA) is a new interactive visual analysis software tool focused on assisting scientists with the annotation of prokaryotic genomes though the integration of proteomics and transcriptomics data with current genome location coordinates. VESPA is a desktop Java™ application that integrates high-throughput proteomics data (peptide-centric) and transcriptomics (probe or RNA-Seq) data into a genomic context, all of which can be visualized at three levels of genomic resolution. Data is interrogated via searches linked to the genome visualizations to find regions with high likelihood of mis-annotation. Search results are linked to exports for further validation outside of VESPA or potential coding-regions can be analyzed concurrently with the software through interaction with BLAST. VESPA is demonstrated on two use cases (Yersinia pestis Pestoides F and Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002) to demonstrate the rapid manner in which mis-annotations can be found and explored in VESPA using either proteomics data alone, or in combination with transcriptomic data. VESPA is an interactive visual analytics tool that integrates high-throughput data into a genomic context to facilitate the discovery of structural mis-annotations in prokaryotic genomes. Data is evaluated via visual analysis across multiple levels of genomic resolution, linked searches and interaction with existing bioinformatics tools. We highlight the novel functionality of VESPA and core programming requirements for visualization of these large heterogeneous datasets for a client-side application. The software is freely available at https://www.biopilot.org/docs/Software/Vespa.php.

VESPA: software to facilitate genomic annotation of prokaryotic organisms through integration of proteomic and transcriptomic data

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background The procedural aspects of genome sequencing and assembly have become relatively inexpensive, yet the full, accurate structural annotation of these genomes remains a challenge. Next-generation sequencing transcriptomics (RNA-Seq), global microarrays, and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)-based proteomics have demonstrated immense value to genome curators as individual sources of information, however, integrating these data types to validate and improve structural annotation remains a major challenge. Current visual and statistical analytic tools are focused on a single data type, or existing software tools are retrofitted to analyze new data forms. We present Visual Exploration and Statistics to Promote Annotation (VESPA) is a new interactive visual analysis software tool focused on assisting scientists with the annotation of prokaryotic genomes though the integration of proteomics and transcriptomics data with current genome location coordinates. Results VESPA is a desktop Java™ application that integrates high-throughput proteomics data (peptide-centric) and transcriptomics (probe or RNA-Seq) data into a genomic context, all of which can be visualized at three levels of genomic resolution. Data is interrogated via searches linked to the genome visualizations to find regions with high likelihood of mis-annotation. Search results are linked to exports for further validation outside of VESPA or potential coding-regions can be analyzed concurrently with the software through interaction with BLAST. VESPA is demonstrated on two use cases (Yersinia pestis Pestoides F and Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002) to demonstrate the rapid manner in which mis-annotations can be found and explored in VESPA using either proteomics data alone, or in combination with transcriptomic data. Conclusions VESPA is an interactive visual analytics tool that integrates high-throughput data into a genomic context to facilitate the discovery of structural mis-annotations in prokaryotic genomes. Data is evaluated via visual analysis across multiple levels of genomic resolution, linked searches and interaction with existing bioinformatics tools. We highlight the novel functionality of VESPA and core programming requirements for visualization of these large heterogeneous datasets for a client-side application. The software is freely available at https://www.biopilot.org/docs/Software/Vespa.php. PMID:22480257

Mapping as a visual health communication tool: promises and dilemmas.

PubMed

Parrott, Roxanne; Hopfer, Suellen; Ghetian, Christie; Lengerich, Eugene

2007-01-01

In the era of evidence-based public health promotion and planning, the use of maps as a form of evidence to communicate about the multiple determinants of cancer is on the rise. Geographic information systems and mapping technologies make future proliferation of this strategy likely. Yet disease maps as a communication form remain largely unexamined. This content analysis considers the presence of multivariate information, credibility cues, and the communication function of publicly accessible maps for cancer control activities. Thirty-six state comprehensive cancer control plans were publicly available in July 2005 and were reviewed for the presence of maps. Fourteen of the 36 state cancer plans (39%) contained map images (N = 59 static maps). A continuum of map inter activity was observed, with 10 states having interactive mapping tools available to query and map cancer information. Four states had both cancer plans with map images and interactive mapping tools available to the public on their Web sites. Of the 14 state cancer plans that depicted map images, two displayed multivariate data in a single map. Nine of the 10 states with interactive mapping capability offered the option to display multivariate health risk messages. The most frequent content category mapped was cancer incidence and mortality, with stage at diagnosis infrequently available. The most frequent communication function served by the maps reviewed was redundancy, as maps repeated information contained in textual forms. The social and ethical implications for communicating about cancer through the use of visual geographic representations are discussed.

Data visualization in interactive maps and time series

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maigne, Vanessa; Evano, Pascal; Brockmann, Patrick; Peylin, Philippe; Ciais, Philippe

2014-05-01

State-of-the-art data visualization has nothing to do with plots and maps we used few years ago. Many opensource tools are now available to provide access to scientific data and implement accessible, interactive, and flexible web applications. Here we will present a web site opened November 2013 to create custom global and regional maps and time series from research models and datasets. For maps, we explore and get access to data sources from a THREDDS Data Server (TDS) with the OGC WMS protocol (using the ncWMS implementation) then create interactive maps with the OpenLayers javascript library and extra information layers from a GeoServer. Maps become dynamic, zoomable, synchroneaously connected to each other, and exportable to Google Earth. For time series, we extract data from a TDS with the Netcdf Subset Service (NCSS) then display interactive graphs with a custom library based on the Data Driven Documents javascript library (D3.js). This time series application provides dynamic functionalities such as interpolation, interactive zoom on different axes, display of point values, and export to different formats. These tools were implemented for the Global Carbon Atlas (http://www.globalcarbonatlas.org): a web portal to explore, visualize, and interpret global and regional carbon fluxes from various model simulations arising from both human activities and natural processes, a work led by the Global Carbon Project.

Abstracting Attribute Space for Transfer Function Exploration and Design.

PubMed

Maciejewski, Ross; Jang, Yun; Woo, Insoo; Jänicke, Heike; Gaither, Kelly P; Ebert, David S

2013-01-01

Currently, user centered transfer function design begins with the user interacting with a one or two-dimensional histogram of the volumetric attribute space. The attribute space is visualized as a function of the number of voxels, allowing the user to explore the data in terms of the attribute size/magnitude. However, such visualizations provide the user with no information on the relationship between various attribute spaces (e.g., density, temperature, pressure, x, y, z) within the multivariate data. In this work, we propose a modification to the attribute space visualization in which the user is no longer presented with the magnitude of the attribute; instead, the user is presented with an information metric detailing the relationship between attributes of the multivariate volumetric data. In this way, the user can guide their exploration based on the relationship between the attribute magnitude and user selected attribute information as opposed to being constrained by only visualizing the magnitude of the attribute. We refer to this modification to the traditional histogram widget as an abstract attribute space representation. Our system utilizes common one and two-dimensional histogram widgets where the bins of the abstract attribute space now correspond to an attribute relationship in terms of the mean, standard deviation, entropy, or skewness. In this manner, we exploit the relationships and correlations present in the underlying data with respect to the dimension(s) under examination. These relationships are often times key to insight and allow us to guide attribute discovery as opposed to automatic extraction schemes which try to calculate and extract distinct attributes a priori. In this way, our system aids in the knowledge discovery of the interaction of properties within volumetric data.

Frontal and Parietal Cortical Interactions with Distributed Visual Representations during Selective Attention and Action Selection

PubMed Central

Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C.; Rushworth, Matthew F. S.

2013-01-01

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity. PMID:24133250

Frontal and parietal cortical interactions with distributed visual representations during selective attention and action selection.

PubMed

Nelissen, Natalie; Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C; Rushworth, Matthew F S

2013-10-16

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity.

Audio–visual interactions for motion perception in depth modulate activity in visual area V3A

PubMed Central

Ogawa, Akitoshi; Macaluso, Emiliano

2013-01-01

Multisensory signals can enhance the spatial perception of objects and events in the environment. Changes of visual size and auditory intensity provide us with the main cues about motion direction in depth. However, frequency changes in audition and binocular disparity in vision also contribute to the perception of motion in depth. Here, we presented subjects with several combinations of auditory and visual depth-cues to investigate multisensory interactions during processing of motion in depth. The task was to discriminate the direction of auditory motion in depth according to increasing or decreasing intensity. Rising or falling auditory frequency provided an additional within-audition cue that matched or did not match the intensity change (i.e. intensity-frequency (IF) “matched vs. unmatched” conditions). In two-thirds of the trials, a task-irrelevant visual stimulus moved either in the same or opposite direction of the auditory target, leading to audio–visual “congruent vs. incongruent” between-modalities depth-cues. Furthermore, these conditions were presented either with or without binocular disparity. Behavioral data showed that the best performance was observed in the audio–visual congruent condition with IF matched. Brain imaging results revealed maximal response in visual area V3A when all cues provided congruent and reliable depth information (i.e. audio–visual congruent, IF-matched condition including disparity cues). Analyses of effective connectivity revealed increased coupling from auditory cortex to V3A specifically in audio–visual congruent trials. We conclude that within- and between-modalities cues jointly contribute to the processing of motion direction in depth, and that they do so via dynamic changes of connectivity between visual and auditory cortices. PMID:23333414