Tomohiro Kuroki

Visual search controlled by spatial frequency without salient features in an image

To clarify the characteristics of visual search that are controlled by spatial frequency, we measured the scan path during eye movement in response to visual stimuli. A target stimulus with the spatial frequency of 1/fβ (where β is the slope of power spectral density of luminance in an image) was embedded in a background stimulus with white (1/f0) characteristics. An instruction-based task was employed in this study, wherein a subject searches for the target as rapidly as possible and fixates on it. Participants were six healthy males aged 21–22 years. In the task, a threshold for spatial frequency that was the minimum value required by the subjects for the search corresponded to β =∼ 0.2 − 0.3. This finding has potential application in the design of visual presentation media, such as signs and tablets, by providing ease of viewing to the user.

Visual search controlled by spatial frequency without salient features in an image: VISUAL SEARCH CONTROLLED BY SPATIAL FREQUENCY WITHOUT SALIENT FEATURES IN AN IMAGE

To clarify the characteristics of visual search that are controlled by spatial frequency, we measured the scan path during eye movement in response to visual stimuli. A target stimulus with the spatial frequency of 1/fβ (where β is the slope of power spectral density of luminance in an image) was embedded in a background stimulus with white (1/f0) characteristics. An instruction-based task was employed in this study, wherein a subject searches for the target as rapidly as possible and fixates on it. Participants were six healthy males aged 21–22 years. In the task, a threshold for spatial frequency that was the minimum value required by the subjects for the search corresponded to β =∼ 0.2 − 0.3. This finding has potential application in the design of visual presentation media, such as signs and tablets, by providing ease of viewing to the user.

Psychological experiment on the evaluation system of creativity

Creativity can be understood to mean many different things, and researchers study creativity from widely varying points of view. One target for the present research is the process of creative thinking. The focus is on the subjective evaluation that such thinking is beautiful, excellent, amazing, and creative. The hypothesis: that which is creative is attractive. To investigate this hypothesis, subjects’ assessment of creativeness of their ideas were examined in three types of creative thinking tasks. Subjects undertook these tasks and evaluated attractiveness and creativeness of their own and others’ efforts intuitively. Their intuitive and subjective evaluation is largely a matter of emotion, and their measures of the evaluation are subconscious functions. There are high correlations between attractiveness and creativeness that is rated as novel and appropriate. In particular, there are very high correlations in one of the three tasks, named the new product test. The absence of correlation between novelty and appropriateness suggests that novelty and appropriateness are independent of each other. In all creative thinking tasks, answers can be obtained in sufficient quantity and with an adequate range of scores. The new product test in particular yields a range of responses from the highest score to the lowest. The results of this experiment support the hypothesis that what is creative is attractive. Furthermore, the considered thinking tasks should be valid for assessing the influence of the physical environment on creative performance.

Effect of visual image features on neural activities: An fMRI study

There are various elements in visual images, such as luminance, edge, color, movement, and shape, that may affect mental activity. In an attempt to explore the neural processes associated with image features, we extracted the edge and spatial frequency characteristics from images of two movies having completely differential features. Using the fMRI technique, we measured the effects of the movies on the physiology of subjects viewing them. It was found that an outdoor movie contains higher-frequency components than an indoor movie. Further, the outdoor movie activates the frontal regions, and this may affect higher-order brain functions such as display of emotions and conscious awareness.