Understanding actions performed by others requires us to integrate different types of information about people, scenes, objects, and their interactions. What organizing dimensions does the mind use to make sense of this complex action space? To address this question, we collected intuitive similarity judgments across two large-scale sets of naturalistic videos depicting everyday actions. We used cross-validated sparse non-negative matrix factorization to identify the structure underlying action similarity judgments. A low-dimensional representation, consisting of nine to ten dimensions, was sufficient to accurately reconstruct human similarity judgments. The dimensions were robust to stimulus set perturbations and reproducible in a separate odd-one-out experiment. Human labels mapped these dimensions onto semantic axes relating to food, work, and home life; social axes relating to people and emotions; and one visual axis related to scene setting. While highly interpretable, these dimensions did not share a clear one-to-one correspondence with prior hypotheses of action-relevant dimensions. Together, our results reveal a low-dimensional set of robust and interpretable dimensions that organize intuitive action similarity judgments and highlight the importance of data-driven investigations of behavioral representations.
Understanding the visual perception of awkward body movements: How interactions go awry
Dyadic interactions can sometimes elicit a disconcerting response from viewers, generating a sense of “awkwardness.” Despite the ubiquity of awkward social interactions in daily life, it remains unknown what visual cues signal the oddity of human interactions and yield the subjective impression of awkwardness. In the present experiments, we focused on a range of greeting behaviors (handshake, fist bump, high five) to examine both the inherent objectivity and impact of contextual and kinematic information in the social evaluation of awkwardness. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to discriminate whether greeting behaviors presented in raw videos were awkward or natural, and if judged as awkward, participants provided verbal descriptions regarding the awkward greeting behaviors. Participants showed consensus in judging awkwardness from raw videos, with a high proportion of congruent responses across a range of awkward greeting behaviors. We also found that people used social-related and motor-related words in their descriptions for awkward interactions. Experiment 2 employed advanced computer vision techniques to present the same greeting behaviors in three different display types. All display types preserved kinematic information, but varied contextual information: (1) patch displays presented blurred scenes composed of patches; (2) body displays presented human body figures on a black background; and (3) skeleton displays presented skeletal figures of moving bodies. Participants rated the degree of awkwardness of greeting behaviors. Across display types, participants consistently discriminated awkward and natural greetings, indicating that the kinematics of body movements plays an important role in guiding awkwardness judgments. Multidimensional scaling analysis based on the similarity of awkwardness ratings revealed two primary cues:
motor coordination (which accounted for most of the variability in awkwardness judgments) and social coordination. We conclude that the perception of awkwardness, while primarily inferred on the basis of kinematic information, is additionally affected by the perceived social coordination underlying human greeting behaviors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1655300
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10166378
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
- ISSN:
- 1943-3921
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract -
null (Ed.)The human ability to use different tools demonstrates our capability of forming and maintaining multiple, context-specific motor memories. Experimentally, this has been investigated in dual adaptation, where participants adjust their reaching movements to opposing visuomotor transformations. Adaptation in these paradigms occurs by distinct processes, such as strategies for each transformation or the implicit acquisition of distinct visuomotor mappings. Although distinct, transformation-dependent aftereffects have been interpreted as support for the latter, they could reflect adaptation of a single visuomotor map, which is locally adjusted in different regions of the workspace. Indeed, recent studies suggest that explicit aiming strategies direct where in the workspace implicit adaptation occurs, thus potentially serving as a cue to enable dual adaptation. Disentangling these possibilities is critical to understanding how humans acquire and maintain motor memories for different skills and tools. We therefore investigated generalization of explicit and implicit adaptation to untrained movement directions after participants practiced two opposing cursor rotations, which were associated with the visual display being presented in the left or right half of the screen. Whereas participants learned to compensate for opposing rotations by explicit strategies specific to this visual workspace cue, aftereffects were not cue sensitive. Instead, aftereffects displayed bimodal generalization patterns that appeared to reflect locally limited learning of both transformations. By varying target arrangements and instructions, we show that these patterns are consistent with implicit adaptation that generalizes locally around movement plans associated with opposing visuomotor transformations. Our findings show that strategies can shape implicit adaptation in a complex manner. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Visuomotor dual adaptation experiments have identified contextual cues that enable learning of separate visuomotor mappings, but the underlying representations of learning are unclear. We report that visual workspace separation as a contextual cue enables the compensation of opposing cursor rotations by a combination of explicit and implicit processes: Learners developed context-dependent explicit aiming strategies, whereas an implicit visuomotor map represented dual adaptation independent from arbitrary context cues by local adaptation around the explicit movement plan.more » « less
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Introduction Social media has created opportunities for children to gather social support online (Blackwell et al., 2016; Gonzales, 2017; Jackson, Bailey, & Foucault Welles, 2018; Khasawneh, Rogers, Bertrand, Madathil, & Gramopadhye, 2019; Ponathil, Agnisarman, Khasawneh, Narasimha, & Madathil, 2017). However, social media also has the potential to expose children and adolescents to undesirable behaviors. Research showed that social media can be used to harass, discriminate (Fritz & Gonzales, 2018), dox (Wood, Rose, & Thompson, 2018), and socially disenfranchise children (Page, Wisniewski, Knijnenburg, & Namara, 2018). Other research proposes that social media use might be correlated to the significant increase in suicide rates and depressive symptoms among children and adolescents in the past ten years (Mitchell, Wells, Priebe, & Ybarra, 2014). Evidence based research suggests that suicidal and unwanted behaviors can be promulgated through social contagion effects, which model, normalize, and reinforce self-harming behavior (Hilton, 2017). These harmful behaviors and social contagion effects may occur more frequently through repetitive exposure and modelling via social media, especially when such content goes “viral” (Hilton, 2017). One example of viral self-harming behavior that has generated significant media attention is the Blue Whale Challenge (BWC). The hearsay about this challenge is that individuals at all ages are persuaded to participate in self-harm and eventually kill themselves (Mukhra, Baryah, Krishan, & Kanchan, 2017). Research is needed specifically concerning BWC ethical concerns, the effects the game may have on teenagers, and potential governmental interventions. To address this gap in the literature, the current study uses qualitative and content analysis research techniques to illustrate the risk of self-harm and suicide contagion through the portrayal of BWC on YouTube and Twitter Posts. The purpose of this study is to analyze the portrayal of BWC on YouTube and Twitter in order to identify the themes that are presented on YouTube and Twitter posts that share and discuss BWC. In addition, we want to explore to what extent are YouTube videos compliant with safe and effective suicide messaging guidelines proposed by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). Method Two social media websites were used to gather the data: 60 videos and 1,112 comments from YouTube and 150 posts from Twitter. The common themes of the YouTube videos, comments on those videos, and the Twitter posts were identified using grounded, thematic content analysis on the collected data (Padgett, 2001). Three codebooks were built, one for each type of data. The data for each site were analyzed, and the common themes were identified. A deductive coding analysis was conducted on the YouTube videos based on the nine SPRC safe and effective messaging guidelines (Suicide Prevention Resource Center, 2006). The analysis explored the number of videos that violated these guidelines and which guidelines were violated the most. The inter-rater reliabilities between the coders ranged from 0.61 – 0.81 based on Cohen’s kappa. Then the coders conducted consensus coding. Results & Findings Three common themes were identified among all the posts in the three social media platforms included in this study. The first theme included posts where social media users were trying to raise awareness and warning parents about this dangerous phenomenon in order to reduce the risk of any potential participation in BWC. This was the most common theme in the videos and posts. Additionally, the posts claimed that there are more than 100 people who have played BWC worldwide and provided detailed description of what each individual did while playing the game. These videos also described the tasks and different names of the game. Only few videos provided recommendations to teenagers who might be playing or thinking of playing the game and fewer videos mentioned that the provided statistics were not confirmed by reliable sources. The second theme included posts of people that either criticized the teenagers who participated in BWC or made fun of them for a couple of reasons: they agreed with the purpose of BWC of “cleaning the society of people with mental issues,” or they misunderstood why teenagers participate in these kind of challenges, such as thinking they mainly participate due to peer pressure or to “show off”. The last theme we identified was that most of these users tend to speak in detail about someone who already participated in BWC. These videos and posts provided information about their demographics and interviews with their parents or acquaintances, who also provide more details about the participant’s personal life. The evaluation of the videos based on the SPRC safe messaging guidelines showed that 37% of the YouTube videos met fewer than 3 of the 9 safe messaging guidelines. Around 50% of them met only 4 to 6 of the guidelines, while the remaining 13% met 7 or more of the guidelines. Discussion This study is the first to systematically investigate the quality, portrayal, and reach of BWC on social media. Based on our findings from the emerging themes and the evaluation of the SPRC safe messaging guidelines we suggest that these videos could contribute to the spread of these deadly challenges (or suicide in general since the game might be a hoax) instead of raising awareness. Our suggestion is parallel with similar studies conducted on the portrait of suicide in traditional media (Fekete & Macsai, 1990; Fekete & Schmidtke, 1995). Most posts on social media romanticized people who have died by following this challenge, and younger vulnerable teens may see the victims as role models, leading them to end their lives in the same way (Fekete & Schmidtke, 1995). The videos presented statistics about the number of suicides believed to be related to this challenge in a way that made suicide seem common (Cialdini, 2003). In addition, the videos presented extensive personal information about the people who have died by suicide while playing the BWC. These videos also provided detailed descriptions of the final task, including pictures of self-harm, material that may encourage vulnerable teens to consider ending their lives and provide them with methods on how to do so (Fekete & Macsai, 1990). On the other hand, these videos both failed to emphasize prevention by highlighting effective treatments for mental health problems and failed to encourage teenagers with mental health problems to seek help and providing information on where to find it. YouTube and Twitter are capable of influencing a large number of teenagers (Khasawneh, Ponathil, Firat Ozkan, & Chalil Madathil, 2018; Pater & Mynatt, 2017). We suggest that it is urgent to monitor social media posts related to BWC and similar self-harm challenges (e.g., the Momo Challenge). Additionally, the SPRC should properly educate social media users, particularly those with more influence (e.g., celebrities) on elements that boost negative contagion effects. While the veracity of these challenges is doubted by some, posting about the challenges in unsafe manners can contribute to contagion regardless of the challlenges’ true nature.more » « less
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Background: Drivers gather most of the information they need to drive by looking at the world around them and at visual displays within the vehicle. Navigation systems automate the way drivers navigate. In using these systems, drivers offload both tactical (route following) and strategic aspects (route planning) of navigational tasks to the automated SatNav system, freeing up cognitive and attentional resources that can be used in other tasks (Burnett, 2009). Despite the potential benefits and opportunities that navigation systems provide, their use can also be problematic. For example, research suggests that drivers using SatNav do not develop as much environmental spatial knowledge as drivers using paper maps (Waters & Winter, 2011; Parush, Ahuvia, & Erev, 2007). With recent growth and advances of augmented reality (AR) head-up displays (HUDs), there are new opportunities to display navigation information directly within a driver’s forward field of view, allowing them to gather information needed to navigate without looking away from the road. While the technology is promising, the nuances of interface design and its impacts on drivers must be further understood before AR can be widely and safely incorporated into vehicles. Specifically, an impact that warrants investigation is the role of AR HUDS in spatial knowledge acquisition while driving. Acquiring high levels of spatial knowledge is crucial for navigation tasks because individuals who have greater levels of spatial knowledge acquisition are more capable of navigating based on their own internal knowledge (Bolton, Burnett, & Large, 2015). Moreover, the ability to develop an accurate and comprehensive cognitive map acts as a social function in which individuals are able to navigate for others, provide verbal directions and sketch direction maps (Hill, 1987). Given these points, the relationship between spatial knowledge acquisition and novel technologies such as AR HUDs in driving is a relevant topic for investigation. Objectives: This work explored whether providing conformal AR navigational cues improves spatial knowledge acquisition (as compared to traditional HUD visual cues) to assess the plausibility and justification for investment in generating larger FOV AR HUDs with potentially multiple focal planes. Methods: This study employed a 2x2 between-subjects design in which twenty-four participants were counterbalanced by gender. We used a fixed base, medium fidelity driving simulator for where participants drove while navigating with one of two possible HUD interface designs: a world-relative arrow post sign and a screen-relative traditional arrow. During the 10-15 minute drive, participants drove the route and were encouraged to verbally share feedback as they proceeded. After the drive, participants completed a NASA-TLX questionnaire to record their perceived workload. We measured spatial knowledge at two levels: landmark and route knowledge. Landmark knowledge was assessed using an iconic recognition task, while route knowledge was assessed using a scene ordering task. After completion of the study, individuals signed a post-trial consent form and were compensated $10 for their time. Results: NASA-TLX performance subscale ratings revealed that participants felt that they performed better during the world-relative condition but at a higher rate of perceived workload. However, in terms of perceived workload, results suggest there is no significant difference between interface design conditions. Landmark knowledge results suggest that the mean number of remembered scenes among both conditions is statistically similar, indicating participants using both interface designs remembered the same proportion of on-route scenes. Deviance analysis show that only maneuver direction had an influence on landmark knowledge testing performance. Route knowledge results suggest that the proportion of scenes on-route which were correctly sequenced by participants is similar under both conditions. Finally, participants exhibited poorer performance in the route knowledge task as compared to landmark knowledge task (independent of HUD interface design). Conclusions: This study described a driving simulator study which evaluated the head-up provision of two types of AR navigation interface designs. The world-relative condition placed an artificial post sign at the corner of an approaching intersection containing a real landmark. The screen-relative condition displayed turn directions using a screen-fixed traditional arrow located directly ahead of the participant on the right or left side on the HUD. Overall results of this initial study provide evidence that the use of both screen-relative and world-relative AR head-up display interfaces have similar impact on spatial knowledge acquisition and perceived workload while driving. These results contrast a common perspective in the AR community that conformal, world-relative graphics are inherently more effective. This study instead suggests that simple, screen-fixed designs may indeed be effective in certain contexts.more » « less
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Over the past decade, augmented reality (AR) developers have explored a variety of approaches to allow users to interact with the information displayed on smart glasses and head-mounted displays (HMDs). Current interaction modalities such as mid-air gestures, voice commands, or hand-held controllers provide a limited range of interactions with the virtual content. Additionally, these modalities can also be exhausting, uncomfortable, obtrusive, and socially awkward. There is a need to introduce comfortable interaction techniques for smart glasses and HMDS without the need for visual attention. This paper presents StretchAR, wearable straps that exploit touch and stretch as input modalities to interact with the virtual content displayed on smart glasses. StretchAR straps are thin, lightweight, and can be attached to existing garments to enhance users' interactions in AR. StretchAR straps can withstand strains up to 190% while remaining sensitive to touch inputs. The strap allows the effective combination of these inputs as a mode of interaction with the content displayed through AR widgets, maps, menus, social media, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Furthermore, we conducted a user study with 15 participants to determine the potential implications of the use of StretchAR as input modalities when placed on four different body locations (head, chest, forearm, and wrist). This study reveals that StretchAR can be used as an efficient and convenient input modality for smart glasses with a 96% accuracy. Additionally, we provide a collection of 28 interactions enabled by the simultaneous touch-stretch capabilities of StretchAR. Finally, we facilitate recommendation guidelines for the design, fabrication, placement, and possible applications of StretchAR as an interaction modality for AR content displayed on smart glasses.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01948-5
