Dejan Todorović

Lightness and Junctions

The lightness of a test patch completely surrounded by an inducing field can be predicted by variants of Wallachs ratio rule. When a patch is surrounded by two or more regions with different luminances, a plausible extension of the ratio rule would predict that the effect of the surrounding regions should correlate with the length of the border they share with the test patch. However, as shown by the Wertheimer–Benary and White effects, lightness of such patches can depart appreciably from these predictions. It is argued that a fruitful approach toward the explanation of such effects is based on the analysis of junctions (such as T-junctions and X-junctions) between regions. Several new displays and variations of old displays involving such junctions are used to illustrate this approach. An alternative analysis of a lightness effect introduced by Adelson is provided, and the role of depth effects in achromatic perception is discussed. A number of limitations of the approach and possible ways to overcome them are noted.

Geometrical basis of perception of gaze direction.

Perception of gaze direction depends not only on the position of the irises within the lookers eyes but also on the orientation of the lookers head. A simple analysis of the geometry of gaze direction predicts this dependence. This analysis is applied to explain the Wollaston effect, the Mona Lisa effect, and the newly presented Mirror gaze effect. In an experiment synthetic faces were used in which the position of the iris and the angle of head rotation were varied. Different groups of subjects judged iris position, head rotation, and gaze direction of the same stimuli. The results illustrate how cues of iris location and head orientation interact to determine perceived gaze direction.

Type and number of violations and the grammatical congruency effect in lexical decision

SummaryAn experiment was conducted in the Serbo-Croatian language in which native speakers/readers made lexical decisions on inflected nouns and legally inflected pseudonouns following inflected possessive pronouns. A possessive pronoun and the noun or pseudonoun that followed it could agree in case, gender, and number (0 violations), disagree in either case or gender or number (1 violation) or disagree simultaneously on two of the three (2 violations). A grammatical congruency effect was observed for both nouns and pseudonouns. Acceptance latencies were shorter and rejection latencies were longer for inflectional agreement than inflectional disagreement. However, for neither nouns nor pseudonouns was the magnitude of the effect influenced by the type or number of violations. The results are discussed in terms of (1) the automaticity of syntactic processes and (2) the properties of a decision making device (specially tailored to rapid lexical evaluations) relative to the properties of the language processor.

Is pictorial perception robust? The effect of the observer vantage point on the perceived depth structure of linear-perspective images.

Every image of a scene produced in accord with the rules of linear perspective has an associated projection centre. Only if observed from that position does the image provide the stimulus which is equivalent to the one provided by the original scene. According to the perspective-transformation hypothesis, observing the image from other vantage points should result in specific transformations of the structure of the conveyed scene, whereas according to the vantage-point compensation hypothesis it should have little effect. Geometrical analyses illustrating the transformation theory are presented. An experiment is reported to confront the two theories. The results provide little support for the compensation theory and are generally in accord with the transformation theory, but also show systematic deviations from it, possibly due to cue conflict and asymmetry of visual angles.

The Effect of the Observer Vantage Point on Perceived Distortions in Linear Perspective Images

Some features of linear perspective images may look distorted. Such distortions appear in two drawings by Jan Vredeman de Vries involving perceived elliptical, instead of circular, pillars and tilted, instead of upright, columns. Distortions may be due to factors intrinsic to the images, such as violations of the so-called Perkinss laws, or factors extrinsic to them, such as observing the images from positions different from their center of projection. When the correct projection centers for the two drawings were reconstructed, it was found that they were very close to the images and, therefore, practically unattainable in normal observation. In two experiments, enlarged versions of images were used as stimuli, making the positions of the projection centers attainable for observers. When observed from the correct positions, the perceived distortions disappeared or were greatly diminished. Distortions perceived from other positions were smaller than would be predicted by geometrical analyses, possibly due to flatness cues in the images. The results are relevant for the practical purposes of creating faithful impressions of 3-D spaces using 2-D images.

Coupled computations of three-dimensional shape and material

Retinal image structure arises from the interaction between a surfaces three-dimensional shape, its reflectance and transmittance properties, and the surrounding light field. Any local image structure can be generated by an infinite number of different combinations of surface properties, which suggests that the visual system must somehow constrain the possible scene interpretations. The research on this has searched for such constraints in statistical regularities of two-dimensional image structure [1,2]. Here, we present a new class of displays in which the perception of material properties cannot be explained with two-dimensional image properties. The displays manipulate the perceived three-dimensional shape of identical luminance gratings, and demonstrate that perceived three-dimensional shape can alter perceived surface reflectance.

Geometric and perceptual effects of the location of the observer vantage point for linear-perspective images.

New geometric analyses are presented of three impressive examples of the effects of location of the vantage point on virtual 3-D spaces conveyed by linear-perspective images. In the ‘egocentric-road’ effect, the perceived direction of the depicted road is always pointed towards the observer, for any position of the vantage point. It is shown that perspective images of real-observer-aimed roads are characterised by a specific, simple pattern of projected side lines. Given that pattern, the position of the observer, and certain assumptions and perspective arguments, the perceived direction of the virtual road towards the observer can be predicted. In the ‘skewed balcony’ and the ‘collapsing ceiling’ effects, the position of the vantage point affects the impression of alignment of the virtual architecture conveyed by large-scale illusionistic paintings and the real architecture surrounding them. It is shown that the dislocation of the vantage point away from the viewing position prescribed by the perspective construction induces a mismatch between the painted vanishing point of elements in the picture and the real vanishing point of corresponding elements of the actual architecture. This mismatch of vanishing points provides visual information that the elements of the two architectures are not mutually parallel.

Is alphabet biasing in bialphabetical word perception automatic and prelexical

Phonologically ambiguous Serbo-Croatian words are identified more slowly and erroneously than their phonologically unique counterparts. Five experiments addressed the reduction of these ambiguity effects when Roman (Cyrillic) targets are preceded by consonants unique to the Roman (Cyrillic) alphabet. Alphabet-specific nonword contexts were presented briefly with masking. With forward masking, performance was better when the phonologically ambiguous target words and their preceding nonword contexts were alphabetically congruent. Similarly, where backward masked contexts acted themselves as backward masks for the target stimuli, identification was highest when the context masks were in the same alphabet as the targets. Results were discussed in terms of automatic, prelexical processes within a network model of visual word recognition in Serbo-Croatian.

How shape from contours affects shape from shading

The spatial pattern of reflected light carries detailed but ambiguous information about 3D shapes of illuminated objects. A little studied factor that affects the perceived 3D relief of 2D shaded figures is the shape of their contours. An experiment is reported in which 102 subjects matched twelve contoured grating displays (horizontal three-cycle gratings with variously shaped top and bottom contours) with perspective line drawings of different 3D shapes, and also judged their depth extent and direction of illumination. The results showed that contour shapes can have surprisingly strong and salient effects on perceived relief. For each display there was a dominant matching drawing, chosen by the largest percentage of subjects, which varied from 95% to 26% across the set of displays. The luminance distribution of contoured gratings is essentially 1D, so that, compared to the general 2D case, their mathematical analysis is considerably simplified, and shape can in certain cases be recovered from shading in analytical form, yielding a three-parameter family of solutions. An analysis of subject responses showed that most reported reliefs had shapes which were closely related to members of the solution family. Furthermore, the particular perceived shapes of contoured gratings could with some success be predicted from the shapes of their contours, based on a simple shape-from-contours rule. However, the data also indicated the presence of a convexity tendency, independent from contour shape.

Multilayer graphene condenser microphone

Vibrating membranes are the cornerstone of acoustic technology, forming the backbone of modern loudspeakers and microphones. Acoustic performance of a condenser microphone is derived mainly from the membranes size, surface mass and achievable static tension. The widely studied and available nickel has been a dominant membrane material for professional microphones for several decades. In this paper we introduce multilayer graphene as a membrane material for condenser microphones. The graphene device outperforms a high end commercial nickel-based microphone over a significant part of the audio spectrum, with a larger than 10 dB enhancement of sensitivity. Our experimental results are supported with numerical simulations, which also show that a 300 layer thick graphene membrane under maximum tension would offer excellent extension of the frequency range, up to 1 MHz.