In accordance with an experimental setup this thesis investigates to what extent the participants' attitudes and aesthetic preferences are influenced by the lateral direction of light in moving image sequences. It is also investigated whether the participants' handedness correlates with their advertising evaluation. The purpose of the study is to generate new knowledge of potential biases in moving images that could be applied by image producers to create more compelling commercials. Our work is based on a transdisciplinary theoretical approach and the results are analyzed based on biopsychological, sociocultural and perceptual explanatory models. Three self-designed commercials with a left oriented illumination position were used as stimulus, the stimulus were also inverted horizontally. The participants were asked to assess their attitudes toward the commercials with either left or right oriented lighting. Two surveys were conducted: one with a within-subjects design and one with a between-subjects design, a total of 172 people participated. No significant difference between left and right oriented illumination position occurred in any of the groups for neither feelings toward ad, Aad , Ab , or PI. The results suggests that a bias does not occur in dynamic images, unlike the left oriented bias that has been reliably shown in previous studies that relate to still images. Nor could any correlation be established between reported attitudes and handedness.

In this thesis, we studied how physical affordances of the environment, such as traversibility for a mobile robot, can be learned. In particular, we studied how the physical properties of the environment, as acquired from range images obtained from a 3D laser scanner mounted on a mobile robot platform, can specify the traversibility affordance. A physics based simulation environment is used during exploration trials, where the traversibility affordances and the relevant features for each behavior are learned through physical interactions with the environment. The prediction accuracy in perceiving the traversibility affordances of the world, which includes several spherical, cylindrical and box shaped objects, is found to be 94 percent. Furthermore, it is observed that the robot uses only 1.1 percent of extracted features while perceiving the affordances. This in turn saves the time 76.6 percent in scanning and 81percent in feature processing. The robot is later tested in a simulated cluttered environment, surrounded by walls. It is able to successfully traverse in the environment, by selecting its behaviors based on the affordances provided, and performing them. The robot was able to avoid from the box shaped objects, and push-roll the spherical ones without making any object detection. In the last set of experiments, the trained affordance-based behavior selection scheme is partially veried in the real world with the Kurt3D robot.

The belief that intentions are hidden away in the minds of individuals has been circulating for many years. Theories of indirect perception, such as the Theory of Mind, have since been developed to help explain this phenomenon. Conversely, research in the field of human kinematics and event perception have also given rise to theories of direct perception. The purpose of the study was to determine if intentionality can be directly perceived rather than requiring inferential processes. Prior research regarding kinematics of cooperative and competitive movements have pointed toward direct perception, demonstrating participants can accurately judge a movement as cooperative or competitive by simply observing point-light displays of the isolated arm movements. Considering competitive movements are often performed faster than cooperative movements, speed was perturbed for the purpose of this study to determine if participants are relying on cues or if they can indeed perceive a unique kinematic pattern that corresponds to intentionality. Judging the clips correctly despite perturbation would suggest perception is direct. Additionally, we hypothesized judgments accuracy would be higher in the presence of two actors pointing to the use of interpersonal affordances. Twenty-eight participants from the University of Central Florida were asked to judge 40 clips presented in random order including: normal or perturbed competitive actions with one or two actors; normal or perturbed cooperative actions with one or two actors. Percent correct and reaction time data were analyzed on SPSS using a repeated measures ANOVA. Results rejected the hypothesis that social perception is direct and supported indirect perception, indicating participants relied on cues to make judgments, and provided potential support for the interpersonal affordance hypothesis.

Research has shown that in Human-Human Interactions kinematic information reveals that competitive and cooperative intentions are perceivable and suggests the existence of a cooperation bias. The present study invokes the same question in a Human-Robot Interaction by investigating the relationship between the acceleration of a virtual robot within a virtual reality environment and the participants perception of the situation being cooperative or competitive by attempting to identify the social cues used for those perceptions. Five trials, which are mirrored, faster acceleration, slower acceleration, varied acceleration with a loss, and varied acceleration with a win, were experienced by the participant; randomized within two groups of five totaling in ten events. Results suggest that when the virtual robot's acceleration pattern were faster than the participant's acceleration the situation was perceived as more competitive. Additionally, results suggest that while the slower acceleration was perceived as more cooperative, the condition was not significantly different from mirrored acceleration. These results may indicate that there may be some kinematic information found in the faster accelerations that invoke stronger competitive perceptions whereas slower accelerations and mirrored acceleration may blend together during perception; furthermore, the models used in the slower acceleration conditions and the mirrored acceleration provide no single identifiable contributor towards perceived cooperativeness possibly due to a similar cooperative bias. These findings are used as a baseline for understanding movements that can be utilized in the design of better social robotic movements. These movements would improve the interactions between humans and these robots, ultimately improving the robot's ability to help during situations.

Orientador: Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez / Banca: Mariana Carmem Broens / Banca: Alfredo Pereira Júnior / Banca: Ítala M. L. D'Ottaviano / Banca: Elias Humberto Alves / Resumo: Dois são os objetivos desta tese: o primeiro é discutir os pressupostos epistemológicos subjacentes à concepção internalista da mente que enfatiza a mediação representacional entre o sujeito do conhecimento e o mundo. O segundo consiste em propor e debater a hipótese epistemológica (H), de acordo com a qual há percepção direta das invariâncias no comportamento sócio-cultural. Inicialmente, discute-se o método de análise e síntese cartesiano, questionando sua adequação para o estudo da percepção-ação. Especial ênfase é dada às críticas de Ryle ao método cartesiano de análise que possibilita a geração de erros categoriais em sua aplicação no estudo do conhecimento perceptual. Uma alternativa à perspectiva representacionista da percepção é apresentada por meio da Teoria da Percepção Direta (TPD), proposta por Gibson, aplicando-a também à análise do comportamento sócio-cultural. Algumas dificuldades são encontradas na execução de tal intento; entre elas está a questão da autonomia dos indivíduos. Uma possível solução a este problema é elaborada, ressaltando os aspectos das variâncias relacionais dos indivíduos com o meio ambiente, encontradas juntamente com as invariantes estruturais e transformacionais. As invariantes como as variantes constituem as especificidades da interação entre indivíduo e meio ambiente delineando a personalidade individual. / Abstract: This thesis has two aims: the first is to discuss epistemological presuppositions underlying the internalist conception of mind that emphasizes the representational mediation between a knowing subject and the world. The second consists in proposing and debating the Epistemological Hypothesis (H), according to which there is a Direct Perception of Invariances in Social-Cultural Behavior. At first the methodology of Cartesian analysis and synthesis is discussed, questioning its adequacy to the study of action-perception. Special attention is giving to Ryle’s criticism of the Cartesian method of analysis that allows the generation of categorical mistakes, applied to the study of perceptual knowledge. An alternative to representational perception is shown to be the Theory of Direct Perception (TPD), proposed by Gibson, which will be applied to the analysis of socialcultural behavior. Some difficulties are discovered during this project; among them is the problem of personal autonomy. A possible solution for that problem is to emphasize the relational variances between individuals and their environment, these variances occur together with the structural and transformational invariances. The invariants as well as variants form the specifics of the interaction between individual and environment, and thereby shape the personal autonomy. / Doutor

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-12-04Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:03:13Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 morais_sr_dr_mar.pdf: 1039071 bytes, checksum: ffdf99fb1c29e213a06ddde5c95dbbe7 (MD5) / Dois são os objetivos desta tese: o primeiro é discutir os pressupostos epistemológicos subjacentes à concepção internalista da mente que enfatiza a mediação representacional entre o sujeito do conhecimento e o mundo. O segundo consiste em propor e debater a hipótese epistemológica (H), de acordo com a qual há percepção direta das invariâncias no comportamento sócio-cultural. Inicialmente, discute-se o método de análise e síntese cartesiano, questionando sua adequação para o estudo da percepção-ação. Especial ênfase é dada às críticas de Ryle ao método cartesiano de análise que possibilita a geração de erros categoriais em sua aplicação no estudo do conhecimento perceptual. Uma alternativa à perspectiva representacionista da percepção é apresentada por meio da Teoria da Percepção Direta (TPD), proposta por Gibson, aplicando-a também à análise do comportamento sócio-cultural. Algumas dificuldades são encontradas na execução de tal intento; entre elas está a questão da autonomia dos indivíduos. Uma possível solução a este problema é elaborada, ressaltando os aspectos das variâncias relacionais dos indivíduos com o meio ambiente, encontradas juntamente com as invariantes estruturais e transformacionais. As invariantes como as variantes constituem as especificidades da interação entre indivíduo e meio ambiente delineando a personalidade individual. / This thesis has two aims: the first is to discuss epistemological presuppositions underlying the internalist conception of mind that emphasizes the representational mediation between a knowing subject and the world. The second consists in proposing and debating the Epistemological Hypothesis (H), according to which there is a Direct Perception of Invariances in Social-Cultural Behavior. At first the methodology of Cartesian analysis and synthesis is discussed, questioning its adequacy to the study of action-perception. Special attention is giving to Ryle s criticism of the Cartesian method of analysis that allows the generation of categorical mistakes, applied to the study of perceptual knowledge. An alternative to representational perception is shown to be the Theory of Direct Perception (TPD), proposed by Gibson, which will be applied to the analysis of socialcultural behavior. Some difficulties are discovered during this project; among them is the problem of personal autonomy. A possible solution for that problem is to emphasize the relational variances between individuals and their environment, these variances occur together with the structural and transformational invariances. The invariants as well as variants form the specifics of the interaction between individual and environment, and thereby shape the personal autonomy.

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