1,722,212 research outputs found
Interaction of two sources of information in spatio-temporal occlusions
No full textINVESTIGATIVE OPHTALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENC
Visually guided pointing and the Mueller-Lyer illusion: why are the data so contradictory?
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Polarization Modulator Unit Harness Thermal Design for the Mid- and High-Frequency Telescopes of the LiteBIRD Space Mission
No full textPolarization modulator units (PMUs) represent a critical and powerful component in CMB polarization experiments to suppress the 1/f noise component and mitigate systematic uncertainties induced by detector gain drifts and beam asymmetries. The LiteBIRD mission (expected launch in the late 2020 s) will be equipped with 3 PMUs, one for each of the 3 telescopes, and aims at detecting the primordial gravitational waves with a sensitivity of δr< 0.001. Each PMU is based on a continuously rotating transmissive half-wave plate held by a superconducting magnetic bearing in the 5 K environment. To achieve and monitor the rotation a number of subsystems is needed: clamp and release system and motor coils for the rotation; optical encoder, capacitive, Hall and temperature sensors to monitor its dynamic stability. In this contribution, we present a preliminary thermal design of the harness configuration for the PMUs of the mid- and high- frequency telescopes. The design is based on both the stringent system constraint for the total thermal budget available for the PMUs (≲ 4 mW at 5 K) and on the requirements for different subsystem: coils currents (up to 10 mA), optical fibers for encoder readout, 25 MHz bias signal for temperature and levitation monitors
Differential Eye Movements During the Autobiographical Recall of Places, Events, and Thoughts/Emotions
No full textRecent research has suggested an important role of eye movements for spatial scene construction during autobiographical recall. In the current study we asked 18 students from the University of Trieste to retrieve recent or distant autobiographical events in response to 6 cue words. Participants sat in front of a blank screen and eye movements were recorded while they described the place and event associated with each memory. Memories were classified using the Autobiographical Interview procedure in recall periods corresponding to the event, place, and thought/emotion descriptions. Comparison of fixations and saccades across these recall periods showed statistically significant differences in the following parameters. The duration of fixations during place descriptions was longer than that of event descriptions and thought/emotion descriptions. The number of fixations per second and saccadic amplitudes were lower during place descriptions in respect to the event descriptions and thought/emotion descriptions. Finally, the number of consecutive saccades in the same direction was higher during place descriptions in respect to the event descriptions and thought/emotion descriptions. This pattern of results is compatible with an exploratory behaviour produced during the recall of places characterized by sequences of short saccades in the same direction and longer fixation periods. Instead, remembering details about thoughts, emotions and events is characterized by larger and random saccades, and short fixations. These results support the hypothesis that autobiographical memory triggers specific eye movements associated with the reconstruction of visuo-spatial layout of scenes
Imitation during phoneme production
No full textDoes listening to and observing the speaking interlocutor influence phoneme production? In two experiments female participants were required to recognize and, then, to repeat the string-of-phonemes /aba/ presented by actors visually, acoustically and audiovisually. In experiment 1 a male actor presented the string-of-phonemes and the participants’ lip kinematics and voice spectra were compared with those of a reading control condition. In experiment 2 female and male actors presented the string-of-phonemes and the lip kinematics and the voice spectra of the participants’ responses to the male actors were compared with those to the female actors (control condition). In both experiments 1 and 2, the lip kinematics in the visual presentations and the voice spectra in the acoustical presentations changed in the comparison with the control conditions approaching the male actors’ values, which were different from those of the female participants and actors. The variation in lip kinematics induced changes also in voice formants but only in the visual presentation. The data suggest that both features of the lip kinematics and of the voice spectra tend to be automatically imitated when repeating a string-of-phonemes presented by a visible and/or audible speaking interlocutor. The use of imitation, in place of the usual lip kinematics and vocal features, suggests an automatic and unconscious tendency of the perceiver to interact closely with the interlocutor. This is in accordance with the idea that resonant circuits are activated by the activity of the mirror system, which relates observation to execution of arm and mouth gestures
How does action resist visual illusion? Uncorrected oculomotor information does not account for accurate pointing in peripersonal space
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