A learning system for adjustment processes based on human sensory perceptions

Creating, designing and adjusting products are essential decision processes underlying creative industries, such as painting, perfume, food and beverage industries. These processes require the participation and continuous supervision of professionals with highly-developed expert sensory abilities. Training of these experts is very complex due to the difficulty of transmitting intuitive knowledge obtained from perception. A new methodology for capturing this sensory expert knowledge that relies on a machine learning tool, previously trained with ‘state-action’ type patterns, jointly with an actions generator module, is proposed in this work. The method is based on a closed loop architecture together with the decomposition of complex sensory knowledge into basic elements capable of being handled by standard machine learning systems. A real case application to color-adjustment in the automotive paint manufacturing industry is presented showing the potential benefits of the method.     

PERSONAL PARTICIPATION: Michael Polanyi, Eric Voegelin, and the Indispensability of Faith

In this paper I focus on the central role faith plays in the thought of Polanyi and Voegelin. I begin by indicating how both find the modern conception of scientific knowing seriously wanting. What Polanyi terms “objectivism” and Voegelin calls “scientism” is the modern tendency to reduce knowledge to only that which can be scientifically demonstrated. This errant view of knowledge does not occur in a vacuum, though, and both men draw a connection between this and the political pathologies of the twentieth century. I then show the complementary ways in which these two thinkers believe recovery is possible: an epistemological solution encompassed in Polanyi's personal knowledge and an ontological reorientation that is the core of Voegelin's insistence that we must recover an awareness of human participation in transcendent reality.     

Discrepant fluency increases subjective truth

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that perceptual fluency affects truth judgments especially when the fluency has changed. Participants were asked to judge the truth of statements that were printed in different colors. Perceptual fluency was manipulated by color contrast. Change versus no change of fluency was manipulated by using preceding statements that had the same or a different contrast. As expected, highly fluent statements were judged as more probably true than statements with a low fluency but this effect occurred only when the high fluency meant a change from previous fluency. The role of discrepancies in subjective experiences in terms of their informativeness for social judgments is discussed.     

Increasing on-task behavior in every student in a second-grade classroom during transitions: Validating the color wheel system

A single-case (B-C-B-C) experimental design was used to evaluate the effects of the Color Wheel classroom management system (CWS) on on-task (OT) behavior in an intact, general-education, 2nd-grade classroom during transitions. The CWS included three sets of rules, posted cues to indicate the rules students are expected to be following at that time, and transition procedures for altering activities and rules. Class-wide data analysis showed large, immediate, and sustained increases in OT behavior when the CWS was applied, with OT behavior returning to baseline levels when typical classroom management (TCM) procedures were reinstated. Each student's average phase data also showed increases in OT behavior when the CWS was applied and re-applied, and showed reductions when the CWS was withdrawn. Discussion focuses on evaluating the internal, external, and contextual validity of class-wide remediation and prevention procedures.     

The cognitive implications of asymmetric color generalization in honeybees

Generalization occurs when a conditioned response formed to one stimulus is also elicited by other stimuli which have not been used in the course of conditioning. Here, we studied color generalization in honeybees Apis mellifera trained to two rewarded colors, S₁+ and S₂+. After training, bees were tested with non-rewarded novel stimuli, which lay between the trained stimuli in a honeybee color space (Int) or outside the range defined by the trained stimuli (E ₁ and E ₂). We analyzed whether bees interpolated their choice to Int and/or extrapolated it to E ₁ and E ₂. We compared the performances of the group trained with S₁+ and S₂+ to those of control groups trained only with S₁+ or S₂+. Bees trained with S₁+ and S₂+ responded similarly and highly to all test stimuli. These results do not allow discerning between generalization models based on the presence of interpolation and/or extrapolation. Nevertheless, bee’s performance was consistent with a linear summation of the two generalization gradients generated by S₁+ and S₂+, respectively. These gradients were asymmetric because control bees responded to the test stimuli as if these belonged to different similarity classes in spite of the fact that they had similar perceptual distances separating them. Stimuli treated as similar were located in the same half of the color spaces, whereas stimuli treated as different were located in opposite halves. Our results suggest that color categories could exist in honeybees and may underlie the performance of the control groups. Under this assumption, color categories would be also present in simpler nervous systems, and would not require factors such as language to be expressed.     

Keeping a Place for Metaethics: Assessing Elliot's Dismissal of the Subjectivism/Objectivism Debate in Environmental Ethics

Abstract: Robert Elliot claims that the metaethical distinction between subjectivism and objectivism is unimportant in environmental ethics. He argues that because a sufficiently sophisticated subjectivist can accommodate all the intrinsic value an objectivist can, even in apparently problematic situations where humans either do not exist or do not have the relevant values, and because metaethical commitments fail to have any normative or motivational impact on rational debate, it makes no difference whether an environmental ethicist is a subjectivist or an objectivist. Elliot's dismissal, however, is unjustified. As it turns out, objectivists argue differently from the way subjectivists do, are motivated differently from the way subjectivists are, and are able to make a greater range of intrinsic value claims than subjectivists are. If Elliot's arguments have any appeal at all, it is only because he blurs the fundamental metaethical distinction in the first place and defends a subjectivism so objectivist that it is almost unrecognizable as subjectivism.     

Categorical Perception Beyond the Basic Level: The Case of Warm and Cool Colors

Categories can affect our perception of the world, rendering between‐category differences more salient than within‐category ones. Across many studies, such categorical perception (CP) has been observed for the basic‐level categories of one's native language. Other research points to categorical distinctions beyond the basic level, but it does not demonstrate CP for such distinctions. Here we provide such a demonstration. Specifically, we show CP in English speakers for the non‐basic distinction between “warm” and “cool” colors, claimed to represent the earliest stage of color lexicon evolution. Notably, the advantage for discriminating colors that straddle the warm–cool boundary was restricted to the right visual field—the same behavioral signature previously observed for basic‐level categories. This pattern held in a replication experiment with increased power. Our findings show that categorical distinctions beyond the basic‐level repertoire of one's native language are psychologically salient and may be spontaneously accessed during normal perceptual processing.     

Seasonal Variations in Color Preference

We investigated how color preferences vary according to season and whether those changes could be explained by the ecological valence theory (EVT). To do so, we assessed the same participants’ preferences for the same colors during fall, winter, spring, and summer in the northeastern United States, where there are large seasonal changes in environmental colors. Seasonal differences were most pronounced between fall and the other three seasons. Participants liked fall‐associated dark‐warm colors—for example, dark‐red, dark‐orange (brown), dark‐yellow (olive), and dark‐chartreuse—more during fall than other seasons. The EVT could explain these changes with a modified version of Palmer and Schloss’ (2010) weighted affective valence estimate (WAVE) procedure that added an activation term to the WAVE equation. The results indicate that color preferences change according to season, as color‐associated objects become more/less activated in the observer. These seasonal changes in color preferences could not be characterized by overall shifts in weights along cone‐contrast axes.     

汉语句子理解中物体隐含颜色心理模拟的ERPs研究

当前研究采用事件相关电位(ERPs)技术,同时沿用经典的句图匹配范式,考察句子理解中物体典型颜色与非典型颜色的心理加工过程在脑电活动上的反映。实验中被试先阅读句子再判断句子后呈现的图片物体是否在句子中出现过,句子中隐含的物体颜色或是关键物体的典型颜色或是非典型颜色。实验结果发现,典型颜色句子版本下句图不匹配条件比句图匹配条件引发了更大的N400效应;而非典型颜色句子版本下两者N400差异不显著。研究结果表明,人们在汉语句子理解过程中会实时对隐含的物体颜色信息进行心理模拟。并且,句子隐含物体颜色的典型性是造成匹配易化或不匹配易化的关键因素之一。     

The effect of color (red versus blue) on assimilation versus contrast in prime-to-behavior effects

This paper examines whether color can modify the way that primed constructs affect behavior. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that, compared to the color white, blue is more likely to lead to assimilative shifts in behavior, whereas red is more likely to lead to contrastive changes in behavior. In our experiment, previous findings were replicated in the white color condition: participants’ behavior assimilated to primed stereotypes of (un)intelligence and contrasted away from primed exemplars of (un)intelligence. However, in the blue color condition, participants’ behavior assimilated to the primed constructs, whereas in the red color condition, participants’ behavior contrasted away from the primed constructs, irrespective of whether the primed constructs were stereotypes or exemplars.