Justin L. Matthews

Cognition and Belief in Paranormal Phenomena: Gestalt/Feature-Intensive Processing Theory and Tendencies Toward ADHD, Depression, and Dissociation

Belief in paranormal phenomena and cryptids—unknown animals such as Bigfoot—may predispose individuals to interpret real-world objects and events in the same way that eyewitness identification can be biased by unrelated information (P. James & N. Thorpe, 1999). Psychological tendencies toward attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dissociation, and depression, even at subclinical levels, may be associated systematically with particular paranormal or cryptozoological beliefs. The authors evaluated these psychological tendencies using the Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scales (C. K. Conners, D. Erhardt, & E. Sparrow, 1999), the Dissociative Experiences Scale (L. Coleman & J. Clark, 1999), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (A. T. Beck, 1996). They performed regression analyses against beliefs in ghosts, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), extrasensory perception (ESP), astrology, and cryptids. ADHD, dissociation, and depression were associated with enhanced tendencies toward paranormal and cryptozoological beliefs, although participants who believed in each of the phenomena differed from one another in predictable and psychologically distinguishable ways. Cognitively biasing influences of preexisting psychological tendencies may predispose individuals to specific perceptual and cognitive errors during confrontation of real-world phenomena.

Modeling gaze behavior for virtual demonstrators

Achieving autonomous virtual humans with coherent and natural motions is key for being effective in many educational, training and therapeutic applications. Among several aspects to be considered, the gaze behavior is an important non-verbal communication channel that plays a vital role in the effectiveness of the obtained animations. This paper focuses on analyzing gaze behavior in demonstrative tasks involving arbitrary locations for target objects and listeners. Our analysis is based on full-body motions captured from human participants performing real demonstrative tasks in varied situations. We address temporal information and coordination with targets and observers at varied positions.

Gesture variants and cognitive constraints for interactive virtual reality training systems

Two studies investigated the nature of environmental context on various parameters of pointing. The results revealed the need for extreme temporal precision and the need for efficient algorithms to parse out different styles of pointing. Most variability in pointing came from individual differences, and a method to classify the kind of point and derive its temporal parameters is discussed. These results and methods improve the pragmatism of virtual reality, making events appear more realistic by emphasizing temporal precision.

Comparing 2D Pictures with 3D Replicas for the Digital Preservation and Analysis of Tangible Heritage.

In this paper, we present two experiments designed to compare 2D digital pictures and 3D digital replicas of artifacts, to understand how differently these media facilitate the perception and understanding of our past. Archeologists and museum experts have commonly used 2D digital pictures to preserve and study artifacts. Recently, these scholars have also started to use 3D digital archives for their studies. Yet, we still need to determine how these two formats (2D vs. 3D) affect the perception of our past. Results of our experiments point to 3D digital replicas of artifacts as more effective means to digitally preserve tangible cultural heritage, since 3D multi-visualization augments the perception of physical characteristics of the artifacts allowing a more embodied experience with these objects. Our experiments also suggest that multi-visualization (i.e., point-cloud, mesh, and color information) helps the viewers to overcome their personal conceptualization of specific objects.